Spring Break
by IronRaven
Summary: The team is split four ways, each with its own mission. Some seek the killers of the Madrox family. Others are on a quest to recover lost peace. And some are lucky enough to get some down time. Never Trained is key pre-reading. Some profanity, violence.
1. Chapter 1

**Spring Break**

OK, basically, this was originally going to be half of a chapter in Never Trained. Oops, ok, split the chapter. Wait, no, I've got too much going on. I've got most of the X-men and half of the New Mutants hunting a killer mutant in Kansas. I've got the other half of them and all of "new guys" (you know, by spring break, you aren't the bloody new guys any more). And that is on TOP of getting Laura's head bolted on right.

New story time. Sorry to everyone who's been waiting. If you've got a friend who is watching Never Trained, and not watching me, tell them this is up. I'll probably get bored and spam some folks. :P

For first time readers, this is part of a storyline covering multiple stand alones and an ongoing piece. For those want a timeline to get all the needed background:  
Graduation - They Never Trained Me (1 - 7) - Home to Meet the Family - Staying Home This Holiday - New Years New Beginnings - Never Trained (8 - 16) - this

_---_ _Day zero, Friday afternoon_

Laura hated commercial flights. She'd done it before. Fortunately, the adamntium coating had only been on her claws, she hadn't had the full procedure yet. A doctor's note that the Professor had arranged took care of the security checkpoint. But even with a note the airport security had taken their time with Logan. He'd overloaded their metal detector, sending the computer that processed the sensor into a blind panic then shutdown. He had complained extensively about the strip search.

The two of them, Remy and Kurt had been met by one of the Professor's business contacts. The man had identified himself as Akira Tanaka. She'd had a good snort at that- he might as well have called himself John Doe. He also said that the package they had sent ahead had arrived with their seals intact.

She was tired, but she didn't want to sleep. She couldn't sleep, she was running on enough caffeine to kill a small dog. She didn't dare fall asleep on the airplane. She couldn't risk another dream, not in a crowd like that. She was feeling a little punchy though, as they reached the parking lot. Kurt had gone up front with their guide, with Remy and Logan in the middle seat. That left her alone in the back, and that was fine. They had a few hours of driving ahead. She leaned her head against the window as the vehicle started, listening to the vibration. This machine was good, it wasn't broken.

She fell asleep before they were on the highway.

_--- Day one, Saturday_

Kitty took yet another head count while they waited for Rogue and Sam to get here with their rentals. _Velocity_ could handle everyone and their baggage, but that was about it.

They would be doing Spring Break in St Augustine Florida. It had beaches and history and peace and quiet- the real insanity was a few hundred miles south. There had been some complaining about that, and Rogue had listened to every counter proposal from the students. There was a counter for every one of those, ranging from price to "What would the Professor say if yah powers were on MTV? He would not say 'cool', would he?."

Jubilee came over, looking around. "So, this is it?"

It was a little airport, admittedly, but it was big enough to handle either Blackbird so long as they were light enough to land vertically.

"Don't worry. All airports are boring." Kitty looked up at startled shouts and a small bang. "Unless Tabitha lights them ON FIRE! NO HORSING AROUND!"

_---sb1_

They'd been breathing pure oxygen to prevent the bends during their jump. Logan knew it wouldn't do long term harm to them, but he'd had a bad case of decompression sickness once, it left him crippled and curled up in a ball for most of a week. He didn't know what do other than this. He had to get her away from everyone else, and just let her run and scream and rage if she needed. It had been less than a year since Laura had come to the Institute, but she had come so far. She'd seemed like the rest of the kids, just more aggressive maybe. He'd been terrified that she'd panicked like that, particularly since she'd been asleep. If only he'd been there, maybe he could have reached her while she fought, or at wear her out.

He was pretty sure he was doing at best an ok job as a parent, but Kitty and Jean had told him he was doing fine when ever he got in a funk about it. Damnit, he was Wolverine, he was practically immortal, he must have been a parent before. He had asked Rogue about what she'd seen, and gotten no answer; Rogue and Chuck were the only ones who had seen his nightmares and his daughter's, they could judge. He knew the dreams had been horrifying, but she was insisting on beating herself up, isolating herself. She was always her harshest judge, she'd assign herself punishment if she felt it was needed, but in some ways she was almost worse off now than when she'd come to the Institute. He felt like he was watching a train wreck and not able to do anything about it. He had to wonder if there was something that HYDRA had planted in her head, something with a timer that would destroy her if she'd run away. Or would make her return, like his own chip had.

He was stirred from his revere by a familiar voice. "Vhe are approaching the point you marked. Vhat vhas the altitude again?"

Kurt was at the controls of the brand new _Blackbird-2_, bigger and even more high tech than the original. This model was wider in the fuselage and the canards were broader. The engines had been moved into the wings and were decidedly more advanced than what was on _Blackbird-1_. They had more space, much more, they could take the X-van in the back if they needed to, which put an end to needing to rent vans. (The insurance alone would pay for the new engines to go into _Blackbird-1_-they'd bought a lot of rental vans.) The cost had in maximum speed and ceiling. _Blackbird-2_ would never be able to the sub-orbital hops they could do with the first one; they'd had to trade the ability to get a larger team to a crisis against the ability to be anywhere in the world within two hours from the time they were wheels up.

"You heard me right. Forty thousand." Logan grinned inside his oxygen mask as Laura gave him a thumbs up. They'd done this from twenty five, and Laura had said she'd done thirty five. He knew the dangers, most people who did this did so for combat, but he was willing; she was always grinning and calm after skydiving. Grinning and calm was what she hadn't been recently.

Kurt glanced over at his co-pilot. Remy had checked out on _Blackbird_ despite the controls beyond what was found on light prop aircraft, between them they felt they could manage this new aircraft. Remy'd done a lot of risky stuff, but jumping from a perfectly good aircraft was insane. That Rogue enjoyed it scared him a little. But this was a special kind of nuts. This high up, Logan and Laura were going to need air bottles to not pass out, and they would have frostbite, it was a given. The Cajun shook his head and shrugged. "Okay den, Ah'll bring a band for da funeral."

Laura gave a last check that her leg bag was properly attached- it carried everything she'd want on the ground. The pressure dropped in the cargo bay. The condition light switched from red to green. She wasn't fully aware of Kurt telling them he'd see them in a few days. She waddle-ran down the ramp, taking a breath from her air tank as she stepped off into space. She felt the caress of the engine wash while she made slow motion backflip. She saw Logan leaving the aircraft and continued her flip. As soon as she was belly to the earth, she spread her arms and legs, feeling the thin air grabbing her. She felt a leaf on the wind.

She brought her right hand over, pressing the switch strapped to her left wrist. Her goggles lit up dimly, just enough to see the data. These were a new toy from Forge, GPS and inertial relative to the initial point, compass, and altimeter. Inside of her air mask, she smiled, a broad, carefree grin. She was laughing as she watch the ground get closer. Here she was always free from herself, from everything. Under HYDRA, free fall had been one of the few times when she hadn't been monitored nor been on-mission; she'd been able to almost relax for a few minutes.

She could override the automated release, even dump her chute, go into free fall. She was confident that she could survive a fall from angels-forty, but it would take a while and it would hurt. Sometimes she wondered how it would feel. But she also knew that there would be a lot of people yelling at her. She wanted to close her eyes, but she settled for stretching in the air. She could feel weight leaving her, leaving her mind.

The goggles gave her a small icon, showing her the planned LZ. She tracked to the side, bringing herself onto a better course to hit it. She might overshoot a little, but she could always open early, or just walk- it was lots and lots of empty desert. She'd picked that spot because satellite imagery showed there was survey marker and some stones they could stash the flight gear at.

_---sb1_

Charles Xavier breathed out slowly. This was the first time in a long time he'd been truly alone. He hadn't realized just how accustomed to all of them he was. The quiet was loud.

It was also startling to him to realize just how totally the Institute had become his life. His peers, his fellows- they were scattered. He had a few friends, most of them researchers around the globe. He wasn't sure what he was going to do with a week to himself. He'd already concluded that television was a vast wasteland other than the occasional Star Trek rerun and the History Channel. At least he had the library.

He also had a project. He was trying to locate a mutant who was a physician. A family practitioner would be excellent, a trauma surgeon even better. Then somehow he'd try to lure them away from their practice.

_---sb1_

Logan looked at altimeter and swore. He'd checked her pack after she rigged it, it was fine. She should be opening. The plan was to open at fifteen hundred. The ground was getting close. He overrode the altimeter release on his chute- he'd open it himself or the emergency release would pop his reserve up at 600. _Stubborn little..._ _Come on kid. Come on. COME ON! _"LAURA!"

As soon as he saw her drogue open, he released his, feeling the main slither from his pack. He grunted as the increased air resistance grabbed him, jamming up hard on his body. He glanced up, all the cells inflated, his chute was good, toggles were in his hands. These new style parachutes were a great improvement on the round ones he had shadowy memories of using in the Second World War.

Laura felt the tension come off the line to her pack as she flared her chute. She could have hit and rolled, but she stalled out her glide, letting her land on her feet with a few jogged steps. Quickly, she collapsed her chute, pulling the canopy in to her, wrapping it in the lines before the slight desert breeze could grab it and her. She shrugged out of the harness, then unzipped the thermal jumpsuit. In just a few minutes, she had her flight gear packaged to be stashed. They'd already treated sponges with the scent of fox urine to repel rodents. She pulled on the ruck she'd packed before they left. Most of the weight was water- she had a three liter bladder in there, and four bottles, all intact despite the pressure changes and the impact. It was great, big, dry desert. She slid on her sunglasses, then her hat. Sunburn still hurt; her cheeks burned from frost bite.

She could hear it in his steps. Logan was annoyed. He was probably going to yell at her for opening low. She didn't look back at him, she was watching the rattlesnake that was watching her. It probably wasn't used to having mutants fall out of the sky.

"What was that?"

"That was a fully controlled low altitude deployment of a ram air parachute using a covert penetration profile suitable for use in a hilly or urban environment." The reptile tasted the air, only its tongue and eyes moving. It had seen her, but it hadn't tightened its coil or sounded a warning. It was in a comfortable place, for now, it would move if there was a predator or if the rock got to hot for it handle. She wasn't a predator, just something new and odd and not threatening.

He snorted. "Good. I'm damn glad that's what it was, because it looked like you were trying to kill yourself until about 800 feet." He looked at her, the outburst burned out of his system. She was right- do that at night, and you would be almost invisible if the horizon was high. She was smiling, watching the snake. She wasn't really paying attention to him. She was smiling. "Your comm was on the whole way down. Hard to be stealthy when the whole world can listen in on you."

She'd been laughing. Not just the little snicker or snort she usually used. It had been a giggle. He'd only heard her really laugh few times. He'd never heard her giggle before. He hadn't been sure she could. He'd been terrified as she blown past fifteen hundred feet, giggling like Jubilee on a sugar high.

Seven and a half vertical miles of giggling Laura.

_---sb1_

Rogue made the head count this time. Ray, Sam, Syrin... There was Tabitha. Two instructors and fourteen students. And two rental vans. Yes, the students were trained to save the world. Yes, most of them were only a year or two younger than her. But yes, she was their "responsible adult"; she still felt guilty about how Laura's incident had been handled by her. And the kids were wound tight- the more outgoing of them could be a problem the way they were right now.

She picked up her bag. Remy had called and left her voice mail- they'd dropped off their passengers and orbited long enough to make sure both parachutes had been seen.

She looked at the red brick building before her. "Pirate Haus Inn and Hostel...." This was either a stroke of genius or stupidity. She took a deep breath, walking in, knowing that her brood would follow.

"Arrr, kin Ah help yah, lass?"

"Hi, Ah'm Rogue. With tha Xavier Institute."

"Is this everyone?" The man looked dubious. A caller who'd been willing to book three months in advance, for the whole place for a boarding school had been interesting. But this wasn't quite as many people as he'd been led to expect.

"For now. We'll have two more joinin' us in an few hours, and others who might be able to make it if a problem can be resolved 'for tha end of tha week." The place had looked like a cross between a dorm and a bed and breakfast when she'd researched it.

Magnus felt the mass of metal push against him, grunting. Rain and hail bounced off his armour. He was soaked to the skin, his hair plastered down like a skull cap. He leaned into the wind, pushing back and down. The pickup dug into the ground with a spray of mud. It still enough momentum to twist about, presenting the rear end to him.

Jamie and Hank moved into the sheltering lee of the old Chevy. Smaller debris spinked off the metal body. Bobby was doing his best to push the temperature at this level as low as possible. Jean had _Blackbird_ in an orbit at the top of the funnel cloud, Scott and Amara trying to heat it. Normally a tornado was cold at the top and warm at the bottom; if they could disrupt that enough, then maybe Storm could collapse the funnel cloud.

Magnus reached his hand to a length of of corrugated steel, probably part of a barn. Once he had control of it he used it to swat a swarm of debris aside. Right now, he was just trying to keep Storm from getting hit. Boots digging into the mud, he made a dash to the truck, hoping it would protect him enough so he could focus on defending others.

At a shout from Beast, he slid feet first- too close, a length of lumber missed his head by less than a meter. Magnus' boots banged into the bumper of the truck. The oldest member of the Xavier Institute glanced up and started to chuckle, one of those rueful laughs found only when nothing was going according to plan.

The bumper sticker next to his foot proudly proclaimed 'Youth is for the weak'.

**---Author's notes:**  
So... where to start. Pirate Haus is real. Not quite this big. Used without permission, but it is a good place to stay.

**DISCLAIMER**: Many of the above activities are extremely dangerous and if you do them wrong, you will either die or beg to be allowed to die. Extremely high parachute jumps may result in the bends and other forms of barotrauma, along with frost bite, hypothermia and all of the unhappiness that results when something small and squishy (you) hits something big and hard (the Earth) at over a hundred miles an hour. There is more than one reason to call it "terminal velocity".

I know, in Evo, it was implied Laura had the full bone lacing- Dr Risman didn't have all the facts. Not by a long shot. Mad scientist with delusions of motherhood. Hell, she called Logan "Weapon X", like he _was_ the project, not just one of it's products.


	2. Chapter 2

**Spring Break**

Yeah, day one is all shiny and fun. Always is, until someone loses a life...

_---Day two, Sunday_

Laura kept her eyes closed as she slowly became aware. It was warmer than she'd expected it to be. She also became aware a weight on her chest. It's wasn't much, but it was solid. She could smell many things, sand and dust and strange plants, and others. She opened one eye slightly.

"Morning." Logan was working on something small, she wasn't sure what. "Don't move."

She glanced down. It was the same snake she'd watched yesterday, she recognized the small scar behind it's head. "Needed a warm place for the night. What time is it?"

Logan pushed his hat back a little. "Almost eight." That was about three more hours of sleep than she gave herself on the weekend. "You needed it."

She felt the snake move, slithering over her body. It pause with it's head at her throat, sniffing, tasting the air. She felt the forked tongue tease her jaw, tickling the soft skin. She spoke softly, without moving any more than she had to. "Sorry, I already have a boyfriend."

"Laura..." He tensed. He'd been bit once or twice, he knew how fast they could strike.

She moved her arm slowly, while the snake sniffed at her face. She closed her eyes, her breathing almost still. Once her fingers were within two inches, they struck, grabbing the snake just behind the jaw, pointing it's fangs away from her face before it could bite or drip. It protested, hissing, wrapping all four feet of it's length around her arm. "Shhh... Don't worry, you'll be safe. You just need to not be on me."

She stood up slowly, holding it so she could watch it's head. She carried it to a small patch of scrubby brush about fifty yards from their camp, it's rattle shaking as she continued to hold it. "OK, you need to go hide, don't get into trouble. I'm not food." Crouching, she pointed it towards the bushes and released it, ready to jump back or bat it away. She knew she should be faster. It slithered away.

"Nice job. Most people would have killed it." Logan offered out a canteen of water.

"It didn't need to die."

_---sb2_

Alex stared out of the water. There were some breakers, but they weren't what he'd call waves. Not even close. And the undertow made it too dangerous to dive.

Didn't feel much like it anyway. All he really wanted to do was... He didn't want to do anything. He'd woken up at five minutes of five this morning. He had been for a week, without bothering with an alarm, listening for the knock he'd come to expect. Since November, Laura had been knocking on his door every morning just after she got up, so they could run. Damnit, they hadn't even been a couple yet and he'd dragged himself out of bed at an ungodly hour to grunt and sweat and hurt before even going to school. At least she took weekends off- she knocked at six.

He woke up and realized that she wasn't with them. He'd made his bunk, brushed his teeth, and pulled on his sneakers to go run. He'd run along the waters edge until he'd found the beach, and ran on the sand. Wasn't the same as running on blacktop or a dirt road or the powered down danger room. When he found a bottle with a cap, he'd filled it with sea water and added it to his small ruck. The sand shifted, moved under foot, and it didn't always have the same consistency. When it was dry, it would slide, he'd slip a little; wet, it had enough give to make his footing less than perfect, then it was like slamming his heels down on metal. He'd even run through the breakers, the water coursing around his feet, stealing the sand from under him. He'd never tried that before, back home, running in water was like having something try to grab your feet, pulling you back. He'd shattered any wave big enough to potentially knock him down with a power bolt, waiting until the last second. When he done about two miles, he'd swum out to the end of a fishing wharf and scaled the pilings, before heading back.

His legs and back hurt. He'd do it again tomorrow morning.

It felt different than what he'd done last week. He'd gone down the basement, waiting at the line she'd invisibly drawn, waiting five minutes at the place were he was allowed, then gone to the exercise room. He strapped weights to one of the pack frames. Logan had chewed him out at full volume when he was caught with one hundred thirteen pounds of weight on his back on the obstacle course and a twisted ankle, after a three mile run. It was more than two thirds his own weight.

Neither of them had mentioned that Laura weighed one hundred thirteen pounds with her boots on.

Kurt had strapped his ankle, handed him some tylenol and told him to take it slow the rest of the day. He'd almost screamed after school- he was assigned to help the Professor with the hunt for a doctor, and the guest chair in front of the big desk was still warm. It had a Laura hair on it. She'd been there not five minutes before he got home. Part of him had wanted to run down stairs, but she still didn't want to see anyone. Kitty told them later that she'd seen his girlfriend accidentally and she was ok. Laura was just scared of all of them.

The weights disappeared that night sore ankle or not. He'd walk it off.

The morning they left, his roommate yanked open Alex's duffel. "The Professor told me there were weights missing. Dumbass." Flea ported the iron plates back to the basement without another word on the subject.

Everything she'd ever said about him having to be faster, stronger, tougher, it made sense now. He'd had a moment of clarity. She wasn't telling him that one day she wouldn't be able to protect them. She wasn't telling him that if he slowed her down, she might have to leave him behind to accomplish the mission. It wasn't even trying to get him to her level because if he was faster, smarter and stronger he'd be safer. No, she was asking him if he could carry her if she fell. She'd asked him almost every day. _She'd begged him!_

He snapped out his hand at a pebble, intending to fire it out to sea when a shadow blocked the sun. "Last night Remy was asking if you're doing ok. What should I tell him?"

Alex glanced over the intruder to his space. The only person wearing more than Rogue on this whole trip would be Robert Johns. "Hey RJ. How'd you sleep?"

Flashback grunted. Weird beds always had stories. He hated other people's beds almost as much as he did their clothes. At least this one had nothing sticky it wanted to complain about. "Are you ok?"

"You're going to keep asking that, aren't you."

"Nope. Asked twice, not wasting my breath a third time."

"Thanks"

The only response was a snort.

_---sb2_

The first day had been spent getting familiar with the lay of the land near the drop zone. They'd needed to find more water fairly quickly- they'd had two days worth when they jumped. Even if it wasn't the hottest part of the year, it was still warmer than Long Island by a lot, and much drier, they'd loose almost as much water breathing as they would sweating. There was nothing nearby but some small rain caches, most of them less than a mouthful. Logan had wanted to harvest them, but Laura asked him not to. This was a training mission, not the real thing- they had water, and this was all that the snakes and birds and insects here had. They couldn't steal it there wasn't a true need.

Logan had looked at her oddly. He knew she'd kill an animal and eat it, but she also thanked it. She talked to plants. And she apologized to bugs when she stepped on them. He knew it was a way to seek forgiveness for her past, but it was odd. It was familiar and alien at the same time.

On the way down they'd seen a riparian zone, a creek bed, about ten miles to the south east from where they landed. It had taken a decent chunk of the second day- they'd gathered a number of edible plants on the way, followed the unique tracks of a sidewinder (neither one of them were entirely sure what had left those marks until they'd caught up with it), and gathered water in various small pockets when they found it. They left most of it.

Laura looked over the bank. Plenty of trees and grass, but she couldn't hear water. She could smell some, though. She glowered when Logan crouched to study the bank, looking for the best way down. He was always slow. She backed up about twenty yards, then sprinted for the top edge of the bank. No doubt, no hesitation, full speed ahead. A bush clutched at her shoulder for a moment, then rock slid under her foot. She didn't fight the fall, landing on her forearms, rolling forward to her feet and pushing up again. She skipped from foot to foot, grinning as she split the difference between earth and sky.

Logan growled and followed a much more sedate route. When he got to the bottom, she was sitting on top of a rock looking quite smug with herself. "Showoff. Have a nice trip?"

Laura shook her head- Logan trying to be funny was sad. "That is bad enough Alex wouldn't say it."

They found a good place to set camp for the rest of their stay, a flat space under a mesquite tree, assuming they'd find water. It took a while to find the actual bottom of the cut, where the water flowed down from the mountains. It wasn't huge, not quite knee deep, even with the fresh run of snow melt. Or maybe the melt had barely begun. But they weren't going to have to worry about water.

He crouched low, the water just below his nose as he heard an identical sniffing. It smelled good. He put his hand out to block her. "We have a test kit with us, we might as well use it." He didn't bother for the retort. "Look, we _can_ be poisoned, humor me."

"Fine." She didn't think they needed to worry. Neither one of them thought that they had much to worry about from waterborne infection, but he was thinking heavy metal run off could do some damage. She knew he yell at her if she told him that she'd drunk from water sources just down hill from old mines that even had bones around them.

"If Alex or Kitty was going to drink this, would you tell them to wait?"

She didn't even dignify it with a response. Of course she would and he knew it. Yes, if it was drink or you will certainly die, drink and maybe die, but they could usually take the time to purify water. That is why the aircraft survival kits all had fancy reverse osmosis filters.

When the business card sized tester stubbornly refused to report chemical contamination, she ducked her head into the stream, shaking it vigorously, before taking a deep drink. MMmmmm, that tasted so good, no chlorine or fluoride or plastic taste, icy cold with just a little bit of soil in it. It was clean and earthy and wonderful. Plants would have loved it.

Even the river at the Institute wasn't like that, it always tasted like civilization.

She drank until she was full, throwing her head back, her hair a soaked, heavy mane that clung to her. The chill of the water made the sun warmer on her skin as she shook herself happily.

_---sb2_

Sheriff Szilard leaned back on the side of his Jeep. Five tornadoes in his county alone, on a regular cycle. Even if they weren't being aimed at houses that would have told him something wasn't right. "Are you any closer to finding who is causing this?"

Exhausted, Scott shook his head. "Not really. We're mapping the storms, looking for a center point. Maybe that will help us."

With a snort, the Sheriff pulled a rolled up length of paper from the organizer attached to what was once a passenger seat. "Done the same thing myself, let's see how much we agree on."

Scott looked at the map when it was unrolled on the hood of the vehicle. "That looks about right. Do you know of any reports of mutant activity near the center? Or factor in weather conditions?"

Szilard looked at the young leader of the X-men sadly. He'd seen this too many times, a youngster on a hot case. He'd been that way himself, years ago. "Son, the map is upside down. How long have you been awake?"

Scott really wasn't sure. He was one of the few who's powers really weren't useful in a rescue and recovery mission, but he had enough conventional training that as soon as the latest idea on how to dissipate the current tornado failed, he'd just changed gears. They all did. Then they switched over to analysis. This morning, they had immediately brought the Blackbird over the area in the middle of it all, all of the data gathering systems active. Light, millimeter radar, thermal, laser mapping, scans of the full electromagnetic spectrum, it all showed nothing. Jean hadn't sensed anything. They'd spent most of yesterday with computer models of the past storms, developing the last tactic, and searching Cerebro's records for any kind of correlation with possible mutants.

They had nothing. Not a thing. Even Cerebro hadn't detected a blip bigger than an empathic house cat.

"Scott, you and your people are busting your asses, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate that. But you are all over tired, you're going to start making mistakes. Right now, I'd bust you for impaired operation of a motor vehicle if you tried to drive. And if I think you are running on some kind of upper, I'll run you all in for your own protection."

Scott nodded. Jean, Hank, Ororo and himself had all agreed three days ago, they weren't touching the meds in the first aid kit. They could stay awake for a week with what was in there, but they'd be zombies. "Don't worry, the medication is secured and inventoried."

Szilard grunted softly. He wasn't going to bother to check prescriptions, any more than he was going to ask the FAA if their jet should be carrying missiles. They'd tried those several tornadoes back. "I bet you don't even know how long you've been awake, do you? I've got a place you can sleep, some place secure, no one will even know you are there."

"No, not the jail." Bobby really didn't like being caged. Iceman had been tossed in a local lockup 'for his own safety', Scott had been the one to go bail him out. The Drakes had been willing to let their son stay there; now they were working for Assemblyman Kelly. And Ororo's claustrophobia was a second hit against that. And Hank. It was a great idea, but it wasn't going to happen.

"Now, did I say anything about the jail? Nope. My grandparents had nine kids of their own, and five adopted. I'm the only one who lives there- I'll get a deputy out here with a van, tell him to take you there. Make yourselves at home, crash where you need to. I've had half the cops in the state there at one point or another, near enough. And if you try to get your plane off the ground for the next ten hours, I'll personally call the Air Force and report a hostile UFO." The grin under the Yosemite Sam mustache softened it to mostly a joke.

_"Scott, it's the best idea so far. A shower and some sleep will help a lot."_

_"OK Jean."_ Scott blinked tiredly. He was suddenly a lot more tired. He suspected Jean was keeping him and the others awake somehow, suppressing their fatigue. He just didn't know where she was drawing the energy from. She was always warm, but the past few days, he'd felt the heat coming off her body from a couple feet away. "Thank you, Sheriff. Very much." He yawned. "Why the offer?"

"Because this is over our heads, and the bright boys that the FBI and NOAA aren't much use. There is a rumor that one of the shadowy agencies might send a team to us, but they aren't here yet. And from the way your hair just stood up, I'm guessin' you know who I'm talking about."

"Maybe. They aren't much good if they don't have a target to point them at, if it's who I think it is." He really didn't need the Brotherhood showing up. Those five had fallen off the face of the Earth and good riddance.

"I'll keep that in mind. And there is another reason- I don't have a problem with mutants." He knew there were more than a few hotheads who might bluster and put signs in their front yard in the area. He also knew that one of them had had his family saved from the ruin of his farm by mutants a few days ago. "One of my uncles, he was an odd duck. He didn't like being on the farm very much- webbed fingers and toes and gills."

Scott nodded slowly. There were times when forgot that mutants had always been around; the current theory was that it was just getting harder to hide them.

_---sb2_

Charles poured himself a fresh cup of tea from the thermos bottle he had on his desk. In the background, he could hear a television- he'd turned it on to have background noise, along with a radio tuned to a pop music station. It had just been too quiet to read.

He hadn't thought that would be possible.

He'd spent the day reading through professional summaries. A contact the Department of Health and Human Services had provided him with the curricula vitae for about twenty doctors who were either known to be mutant friendly or suspected to be mutants.

Three had been discarded right off the top- they'd been tied with large pharmaceutical companies. After the contamination of the Morlocks' tunnels and Laura's origin, he wasn't sure he wanted anyone who had backgrounds that might lead them into temptation. One was working on a human enhancements under a DARPA grant- too much like Weapon X. One was at NASA, and a candidate for a Mars mission program. That was a long time away, but the Professor liked space exploration, they needed a doctor who apparently was mostly immune to most forms of radiation.

He discarded everyone with small children. This could be a position where long and odd hours were needed. He remembered his own father's absences. That left him with three candidates.

His top candidate was a Doctor Reyes. She was a trauma surgeon working and living in the Bronx, who'd also worked in the poorer nations of the Caribbean. She was a known mutant, he'd tried to recruit her about four years ago after a gang member had tried to kill her after one of his fellows had failed to survive the combination of drugs, infection and bullets that had brought him to Cecilia's care. The bullets had stopped in mid air, caught in a kind of force field.

There was a Ezekiel Martins in Boston. Thoracic surgeon who was rumored to be on a hit list of suspected mutants compiled by the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine. Former Navy corpsman, was attached to the Marines during Desert Storm, marathon runner, and an extreme sports fan. He'd fit in well with the adrenalin junkies who lived here.

Doctor Sarah Wojohowitz-Brown, currently the senior surgeon at a small hospital in Montana. Charles had looked- it was a tiny facility in the middle of nowhere, she probably didn't see much trauma that wasn't from car accidents and power tools. Demonstrated telekinetic ability had not made her popular with some of their neighbors, there had been an attempted arson of her home a few weeks ago. She had the bonus of being married to a general practitioner- potentially it could give them two doctors.

He sighed, rubbing his temples. It had taken all day to reduce the list to those.

_---sb2_

A loud pitched electronic squeal woke up Jamie. He'd heard it before, many times. His heart was pounding. "TORNADO!" He scrambled from the borrowed bed, kicking his roommate. "Roberto, get up, move."

Jamie knew this county. He'd grown up here. This was his home. As he ran down the hall in tshirt and shorts, banging on doors, he was listening to the weather radio. He could see the sky outside the windows. It had a greenish tinge.

He could hear Ororo swearing. They'd never heard Storm use profanity. Not once, even when she broke her toe. This was as strong as anything Logan or Timmy would use. She burst out of the room she was sharing with Amara. "It's heading right for us."

Jamie knew he was scared. He could feel it, but he'd transcended it. It was like he was outside of his body. "Follow me, I saw the shelter." He'd spotted the door almost as soon as he got there this morning. He felt his ears pop about the same time he heard the howl. It sounded like a wounded beast, roaring. He pulled the door open, slapping his friend's shoulders as they went through the door, counting.

One corner was obviously the shelter- it had heavier walls, and anchored shelves filled with supplies. Another radio was squawking to match the one in the living room. The windows blew in as he threw himself on top of the huddled X-men, his copies shielding them.

There was a tearing noise, ripping the house apart. Hank roared, they all screamed. One of the Jamies shrieked in a higher, anguished pitch as the pressure dropped..

_---sb2_

Kurt had seen the suit carrier in the gear they'd had sent along with the parachutes, it hadn't been his. He'd thought maybe it was holding Logan and Laura's thermal suits, but Remy had carried off the plane. Rogue had been carrying it after diner.

"Are ya two sure ya can cover this?"

"Yeah, like what is the worst that can happen?" Kitty knew she shouldn't have said it. Three pairs of eyes glared at her half playfully. "You know what I mean. You two never get time for yourselves. Go, have fun."

"T'anks guys. We'll watch 'em so you can do somethin'..." Remy leered. "Fun."

"Behave!" Rogue playfully slapped her Gambit's shoulder. "Com'on, or the taxi'll leave us."

Kurt and Kitty watched the taxi pull away, carrying their roommates. They actually made a pretty good team, the four of them. They never got to do much the four of them, but that was because they were doing things as couples when they could get away from the Institute.

"So... want to take a guess what they are up to?"

"Nope." She and Rogue had an agreement- no talking about sex lives. Rogue had twitched when Kitty told her that Kurt's tail was the perfect weapon for tickle fights.

"Bet it has to do with wherever they disappear to." At least once a week, each couple was scheduled to be free together. Kitty and Kurt went shopping, to concerts, movies. Rogue and Remy, they just disappeared on their bikes, and didn't tell anyone what they were doing. There was a lot of speculation, but nothing solid.

_---sb2_

A crimson blast created a passage through the remains of the farm house, and telepathy and metallopathy widened it. One at a time they rose to the surface. Roberto had a cut from something running up his back, shallow but painful. Amara had a painful goose egg after the shelving collapsed, showering them with canned goods- Jean and Magnus had caught most but not all of them. Bumps, cuts, scratches, bruises, noses bloodied by the rapid loss of air pressure, they looked like they'd been in a brawl.

"The sheriff is going to be pissed." Bobby ran his fingers through his hair, brushing out splinters and dust.

"This was an attack on us." Magnus' voice was coldly angry. The sky was already clear, there was no signs of the tornado. It had smashed a tiny swath centered on the house, then dissipated. This time it was used as a precision weapon.

Jean shook her hair out. "Does that mean the next one will be smaller, or did we buy time?"

"I wish I knew." Storm surveyed the damage. It had only hit a tiny area, maybe two hundred feet long and a quarter that wide. There were a few smaller divots in the fields before and after, the control rivaled her own. At least.

"Hey, you're ok." Hank crouched down beside Jamie. "We need to get out of here, the whole place will collapse any minute now." They were still down in the hole. One of Jamie's duplicates was still down there to.

Jamie swallowed hard. A length of broken four-by-four had speared that copy in the back, driven through the chest by something upstairs. He'd never had a duplicate die. He thought he'd feel it more, but his back was just sore. He wasn't sure if he was Jamie or if that was Jamie laying dead on the floor and he was just a copy. He couldn't think about it. He took another breath, closing his eyes. He pressed his fingers to the copy, absorbing it. Normally he knew what the copy had felt, been thinking. This one was blank; it felt like a snow flake melting against his skin, pulling flat against the surface, but thicker, like dish soap. He nodded. "Yeah. Just the first time that's happened."

Hank passed him up to the top, before looking back. Other than some stains on the concrete and wood, there was no sign that a part of one of his favorite student had just died.

"Guys? I think it got someone else, to."

"Oh no." They all looked where Amara was pointing. The crumpled and torn remains of a Jeep in Sheriff's department colors was laying on it's side in a field, one headlight wig-wag still flashing.

**---Author's notes:**  
Where is everyone? Looks like I'll have to think about doing the spam I didn't want to do.

As large the Marvel'verse is, I've got a choice. Introduce everyone all at once, or bring in some supporting OCs. I don't want to flood the Institute with well established characters, and I'm trying to keep the time travel and cross dimensional insanity to a minimum. I don't like OCs as much, but sometimes they come in handy. My usual objection to them is the lack of character development- RJ and Flea have been in development for months. There are published characters with less background than they've got. And some of them have been silly. (Sorry, I just can't take some of the uber-mutants seriously. "Reactive evolution"? Please.) Since my version of Betsy is pretty much an OC inspired by the several versions of her, sure, there will be a handful.

And the metals test doesn't actually exist, to the best of my knowledge. As someone who's drank out of a lot of iffy streams and ponds, I wish it did. You can get test strips for about 30 different chemicals, it would be possible to make one, but I know of no one does just single, combined card like this.

And yes, Jamie gets couch time with the Professor after this.


	3. Chapter 3

**Spring Break**

_--- Day 3, Monday_

"Logan, do you think the Professor would approve of a series of lectures on body guarding techniques?"

"Maybe. Who would teach it?"

Laura's nose twitched. "I would. I had to learn how to get past bodyguards; if you know how an assassin and kidnapper thinks, you can predict them." OK, it wasn't quite the same, but it was close.

She growled as the trap collapsed again. She'd never done small game traps- when she'd been living off the land, she threw rocks or sticks, or chased it down and got her claws into it. Logan made this deadfall trigger look easy.

"Want me to show you what you are doing wrong?"

"No. I watched you, I should be able to do anything you can."

Logan shook his head a tiny bit. "Okay. I'm going to grab some water, want me to fill your bottles?"

"Yes, thank you." Laura's claws slid out again. She changed the angle on the cut branch again. Logan could do it, she should be able to. Paleolithic people did this. She was a clone, the product of advanced genetic engineering, and trained in boobytraps. If her prototype could master stone age technology, she should be able to as well.

But she couldn't make a trap for a field mouse.

No, she wasn't being beaten. Not by three sticks and a rock.

Logan shook his head again, bottles hanging from his fingers as he walked away

_---sb3_

They were burning jet fuel, just wearing a hole in sky. Scott had taken up Blackbird to watch for a new tornado, and so far there was nothing. They'd even tried to bait the perpetrator, with Ororo creating a low pressure area and putting it in motion. Magneto and Hank were studying the computers in their laps, trying see if there was anything under them that looked the slightest bit off. Far below them, helicopters from Kansas police and National Guard units were doing the same.

They hoped that they could find the killer first. They were in contact with the task force that the Kansas Governor had built, but not part of it. Based of the call signs from the Guard units, the Governor wasn't thinking discrete; according to what Bobby had been able to find in the computer library there there were tanks and helicopter-borne infantry waiting to pounce. The Professor was adamant- they were in no way, shape or form to get between a full fledged military strike and the criminal. They had to get there first, they had to bring the killer in to show that mutants were not a national security issue, and do it alive, or be nowhere near it. The could not afford to be seen as vigilantes, or operating under military control.

He'd almost recalled them last night, rather than risk it.

Last night, Kelly had gone on television, outting the nature of the activity. The X-men had all been surprised that the media had taken this long to realize what has really happening was in no way normal. Hank had suggested that they had been not trying to start a panic- there was nothing that could be made better by telling the innocent people of Kansas they had a super powered serial killer hiding among them. Magnus was more partial to the theory that no, the mainstream news media really hadn't been able to see what was right in front of their eyes; he didn't have a high opinion of most news agencies. There had even been pictures of _Blackbird_ and them on the news, much to the Professor's displeasure, so it wasn't like the news people didn't know they were here, but no one had use the m-word until Kelly's press conference. Now it was "mutant this" and "mutant that" and "mutant slayer terrorizes heartland".

A blinking light called Scott's attention. They were down to ten percent of their fuel capacity. "Jayhawk Control, X-ray-Bravo-One." Scott let out a little grin. When he'd been a little boy, his mother had a radio tuned to the air tower of whatever base they were on, he'd spent hours listening to it. This was one of the few times they'd actually used any kind of callsign for the aircraft, so they'd gone simple. Rather than using their individual call signs, they had just called the aircraft what it was- Xavier's Blackbird One. "We are bingo fuel. Leaving pattern, we will be back in our slot in six-zero minutes. Over."

"X-ray-Bravo-One, Jayhawk Control. Roger, acknowledge you are leaving the observation pattern and will be return in hour with a full tank of gas. Out."

Scott glanced over at Amara in the right hand seat. One of his goals was to have all the students checked out on at least basic flight by the time they graduated. He nodded before she turned off the auto pilot and tipped the big jet downward. He kept his hands near the controls- she wasn't the best pilot they had, but she was getting better.

Jean and Roberto were somewhere below them, waiting outside a hospital room, joined by several police officers. Yesterday was being treated as an assassination attempt on Sheriff Szilard until it could be proved otherwise. The last storm had hit only his house with the man less than a quarter mile from the driveway. He'd been going to check on his guest, and to warn them that one of the state police SWAT teams would be camping in a bunk room in the converted barn. He'd also had the legal documents needed to deputize them- those pieces of paper gave the X-men the ability to arrest the criminal or criminals if needed. The concern was that the killer didn't know the X-men had been at the farmhouse, and that the Sheriff was the only target.

Jean wasn't sure if believed that. She'd had a moment where she thought she'd felt something. It wasn't a psychic touch, she'd looked and seen nothing. It was like thinking you'd seen a movement in shadows out of the corner of your eye, and then you look and there is nothing. She'd only experienced it when she'd been wearing the Cerebro helmet- the self contained link the big computer at the Institute could enhance the clarity of what she sensed and protected her from direct psychic assault on it's own. But maybe it could also make a blip out of nothings caused by the background noise of six billion minds. But if that was the case, why had the tornado jumped from the house to _chase_ Szilard down the road?

_---sb3_

"Remy?"

"Yes, cheri?"

"Watcha doin'?"

"A'mirin' da scenery."

"Yeah. Yah can stop starin' at me, Swamp Rat." Rogue rolled over on her towel. She'd accepted the risk of someone touching her- she had Remy and Kitty and Kurt around her, it was safe enough to at least try going to the beach dressed in less than long sleeves and jeans. She had a feeling she'd be red as lobster tonight, but she she wanted to try and get some color. Even without the white foundation she'd worn for so long she was still ghostly white.

"Now Rogue, dats no fair. Tellin' me to stop starin' an' yah roll over like 'dat." Gambit smacked his lips theatrically. "Mhm hmm, not 't all fair."

With a playful growl, Rogue threw a handful of sand at him. Kitty giggled and Kurt chuckled..

Around them, the students were busying themselves with just relaxing. Some where doing better than others.

Alex had brought the students the news after his morning run. They knew the word was out in Kansas, but their instructors had told them not to worry, to not think about it. The Professor had told them to ignore the news while they were gone. They had been told to not worry and to not even think about going to Kansas- he would comm them directly if they were needed. That he hadn't sent them anything suggested that their friends had the situation well in hand.

Alex's news filled them concern. The older students who had an A-day story were finding something else to keep their minds busy. The younger students were trying hard to not think about it, and following the lead of the upper classmen. Sam and Ray had last been seen thinking about responding to an open challenge for two-man volleyball teams further down the beach. Tim was sitting on sand with a book, but he wasn't turning the pages- odds were, he was admiring the scenery to, but if called on it he'd say he was on watch in case the undertow grabbed someone. Betsy and Syrin were the only ones interested in going in the water. The rest were either just sprawled on the sand or were engaged in what looked like a cross between Calvin Ball and ultimate frisbee.

Rahne wasn't impressed with the- she was playing in her human form, rather than risking the fine for breaking the local leash law. She'd never outlive the humor her friends found in _that_ ticket. Roberto had mentioned getting her a collar, with his name on the tag. She'd told him that if he put it on her, she'd bite him. It had been a month ago that he'd joked about the collar; if she'd bitten him hard enough then, maybe he wouldn't have been able to go to Kansas.

_---sb3_

"Senator, please listen to me. Yes, they are my students, but only one is a minor and he is there because his family's farm was struck by the first tornado. He is there as an expert on local geography and climatology, and has strict orders to not go off chasing this killer. He is also there pending judicial determination of what to do with his parent's estate, as he is their only child." The Professor resisted the urge to throw the phone across the room. He'd had this same conversation already with a the Governor of Kansas, both of the Kansas senators, several of it's Representatives, and their counter parts from New York.

"Madam, is my understanding that the Supreme Court has confirmed that the Constitution allows members of Congress to say what they wish without fear of retribution even it is not a truth. If you wish to slander me by using the term 'child soldiers' to describe my students, I can in no way prevent you from using an inflammatory and inaccurate term. However, please remember who I am- not only have I contributed to your campaign, I also know several others who have. Including a group who describes themselves as a collection of business persons connected by mutual interests and enthusiasms." He waited, letting the sputtering die down. "The 'm-word'? Do you mean 'mutant'? I assure you, Senator, that I do not consider the term 'mutant' an insult, any more than Dr. King objected to the word 'black'. It does describe me, and my students.... Yes, I know this conversation is being recorded, it is a published standard practice of the Xavier Institute to record the conversations made on the business lines. But I fail to see what bearing that has on our use of 'mutant'- or did you have another word starting with m in mind?"

Neither one of them was going to say 'mafia' on a phone line. He didn't even have any proof other until this reaction, only suspicions based on some odd voting patterns. Keeping track of those kinds of things was part of Hank's job at the Institute, they had to be able to play political hardball. "Yes, yes, I'm sure you've always been a friend of equality and of minorities, even those that many might not be comfortable with."

Idiots, it was like talking to a tree- no, worse, he knew several people who had productive conversations with trees. Talking with these people made Charles flirt ever so briefly with the idea that maybe, just maybe, Magnus' prior opinion of humanity wasn't all that far off.

_---sb3_

Kitty and Kurt returned to the Pirate Haus later than they'd planned. Everyone else had already gone to bed for the night.

Rogue and Remy had told them they should go out tonight. The four of them were pointedly not mentioning that the situation in Kansas was going from bad to powder keg to the students, but the kids knew. Kitty had sent email to the Professor asking if they should join the others there at lunch time, and not heard back yet. So they had gone looking for some place to dance, and then a nice, long walk on the waterfront. They had planned on being back a few hours ago.

They phased through the front door, and checked on the students. One of the young ladies waggled her fingers at them sleepily from her bunk, with a dirty grin on her face. Kitty blushed crimson, as Kurt whispered. "Sorry, Tabby. Good night."

As soon as the door was closed, they both laughed nervously. "Oh no, like everyone is going to think we were... Tabby is going to tell them something horrible."

That they were going slow was no one's business. He didn't want to be like Lance. He knew that Alver's had been Kitty's first- clumsy fumbling in the back of a jeep or at the dive that had been Brotherhood House wasn't what he had in mind. Kurt stroked his nose along hers, before giving her a soft kiss. "Shh.. everyone probably thinks vhe were having a good time. And vhy would it be horrible, if it vas vhat vhe both wanted?"

"Yeah." She smiled up at him, running her fingers down his spine, stroking from ears to tailbone, feeling him shiver slightly. She reached up to kiss him again, but it turned into a yawn.

"OK, Katzchen, bed time for you." He picked her up easily, ignoring her squeak of protest that turned into a giggle, carrying her to the private rooms. He stopped in the hall between the two that were being used, one shared by him and Remy, the other by his sister and his girlfriend.

She slipped through his arms (and the rest of him). "Kurt, does Remy usually leave the door open when he sleeps?"

"No..." The door was slightly cracked. He pushed it open, and blinked the tiny light he carried quickly. "Oh. No Remy."

That was weird. Very weird. Kitty cracked the door to her room, and stopped cold. One of Remy's boots was just inside the door. Just as quietly, with her eyes wide, she shut the door.

"Uhmmmm.... like, can I sleep in your room tonight?" Kitty blushed. Oh god, there were going to be whispers from this. Ms Rogue and Mr LeBeau in one room, Ms Pryde and Herr Wagner in the other. They were going to have to up early. "And, uh, set the alarm early. Like before dawn."

"Already done." He grinned as he fiddled with his watch, showing the stiffness of body that was the way he blushed. Odds were, Alex would be the only one awake at dawn, and he wouldn't say anything, but...

_---sb3_

Logan gently pushed a piece of wood into the fire. There were a few sparks, but very few. He glanced over at Laura.

At his daughter.

No matter how much she said she hated that word, it was how he thought of her. Had since he went through the floor. She'd kicked him in the head hard enough to make his brain rattle as she dealt with Rogue, Slim and Sparky. It had been the way he'd have done it in her place. Until that moment, he wasn't sure what to think, he didn't know if she was some kind of Frankensteinan creature without reason, only hate. He knew how that felt, those were the earliest memories he could be sure were his.

Until that moment, he'd been expecting to have to kill her. But once he saw her, he knew. Not that he wasn't alone. Not that he wasn't the only one of his kind. That he had a future; not him personally, but something more primal. He'd talked with Chuck enough to understand that the urge to have kids was normal, it meant your genes weren't going to end. He knew she was his.

He spread his fingers by the fire.

Chuck had given him permission once Fury had left, Logan could go. But he knew that if he did Fury would have had him followed. It was a gamble. Let her run for an hour or so, and hope she wouldn't run too far. He'd spent months looking for her. He had searched every halfway house, homeless shelter and squatter camp he could find looking for her. He'd gotten word to the Morlocks, he thought she might be with them. Every time he didn't have to be doing something for the Institute, he was looking for her for the first few months.

He'd thanked a lot of HYDRA's agents for what their organization had given him. His claws made their ends quick. They'd been terrified. Not the normal 'oh god, oh god, we're all going to die' terrified. They had the horror of a herd being harried by a wolf pack. That was how he'd known she was still out there. He'd even gotten to one of their facilities, finding it already on fire. That night he'd missed by her hours, maybe even only minutes.

She'd disappeared, like a shadow. Like he would have. He knew had to let her run, she'd return if she was ready. He cracked his knuckles, then put his hands before the fire to warm some more.

"Do they still hurt?" Laura looked at him.

This was something that only they knew. "Nope. Why should they?"

"I never did ask you if you found them all. Or did you have to grow any back?"

He laughed. "Nah, I found all my fingers, although the ring finger took a while. I'm just glad I found some duct tape."

"I'm sorry."

He shrugged. "You didn't make a habit of it. Did you?"

To keep him from following her into the HYDRA airship, she'd cut off his fingers. He'd told everyone she'd just stomped on them, breaking a couple of them, but she wasn't heavy enough to do that. It had hurt like hell, but once he had them all back in place and taped down tight, he knew it was going to be a few hours and they'd be working right again. The middle finger wasn't quite right, he hadn't lined it up perfectly, but you'd have to really be looking to realize that print had been cut. But it worked well enough, and after a few hours getting used to having it a few degrees out of true, it wasn't a problem any more.

"If you ever need to, you can cut a part of me off. I'll forgive you , so long as you accomplish the mission."

Damnit. He didn't know how to react to _that!_ He appreciated the gesture, but... "Yeah. Ain't happening. We'd find another way."

"I am only saying that I will not hold it against you."

_Yeah, but I'd hold it against me, kiddo_. "Shh... we'll worry about it if it ever happens, ok? Go back to sleep."

"You to."

_---sb3_

The deck tipped dangerously. Charles Xavier felt his chair slide, the rubber slipping against the steel plates. His left hand grabbed at one the tubular frame of the passenger seat, his right pulling his weapon closer to him. The was a metallic ping and a high pitched zweet!, then another as rifle bullets poked through the helicopter's skin. There was a small bang and the helicopter twisted bucked again.

This was wrong, this was very wrong.

He could hear the pilot . "Mayday, mayday, mayday. Jolly-Eight-Five is hit. I say again, Mayday, Jolly-Eight-Five is going down."

It hadn't been like this.

Xavier watched Six-Four, the other chopper of the flight spin in, already in flames, the tailboom snapping. He shouted as another salvo of rockets from the Sentinels hiding in the trees below snuffed out the lives of his teammates.

Charles could sense the enemy below them, gathering. He was one of the faceless, monstrous Americans who were destroying their country, they wouldn't show mercy. Especial to a kid in a wheelchair.

This wasn't the way it had happened. Charles Xavier's dog tags bounce on his chest, he could see the big red X on the black field. But....

No...

No.

NO.

Charles Xavier woke up laughing in bed. In a life spent in pain and silence, convincing himself he wasn't crazy before fighting for his equality, the damage was part of how he told time.

**---Author's notes:**  
As Evo is a relaunch of the setting, some things have to be updates. Erik still being a Holocaust survivor makes timelines a little tricky, but he'll have made a few trips to the fountain of youth or maybe his mutation just gives him a good long life. But we can work with other folks. Originally, the Prof was a Korean War vet, a member of a unit devoted to keeping people alive more than combat. It was never said, to the best of my knowledge, what that unit was. So, as I've been updating and fine tuning the gaps in the Evo'vese, it is obvious to me that he isn't old enough to have been in Korea. But we could make this work- he is the right age to have been in Southeast Asia.


	4. Chapter 4

**Spring Break**

_---Day 4, Tuesday_

Rogue was wandering, looking. She was annoyed with someone. She'd fallen asleep reading, Remy had been in the chair working on lesson plans for when they got back to the Institute. He was fine with most of what he needed to do as an X-man, he took to the training and the few missions they'd had with gusto. But the part where he was also an instructor was something was still getting used to. He was teaching French, and the fact there were several people were doing the supplemental French course and they all spoke different flavors of French wasn't helping him much. He said he'd fallen asleep trying to think of language exercises that weren't 'boring', but she had a fuzzy memory of someone singing in her dreams.

Neither one of them knew who had been helpful and closed the door- it was done, no major harm done. Although the image of Kitty sleeping in Kurt's bed while he was on the floor, his tail reaching up to wrap around her ankle had been both disturbing and saccharine sweet.

She knew what she was looking for was probably a beach- despite being on the ocean, St Augustine had surprisingly few beaches. It wasn't quite how she'd pictured Florida. Tabby had come back late last night, then disappeared at dawn with Jubilee. It wasn't like that girl to be awake before nine if it was possible. Rogue could have used the comms, but she wanted to take care of this, she still felt like she had screwed up when Laura had had her flashback. Remy had insisted on going the other way along the waterfront, while they let the other couple sleep..

"There yah are..." Pausing to take off her sneakers and socks, Rogue strode across the sand. The air was still damp from morning dew, the sun barely a handswidth above the ocean, and those two were already stretched out on towels wearing not very much. Rogue knew it was her own paranoia about her powers, but she didn't own anything that skimpy, looked wrong. She sat down next to her young charges. "Mornin' girls, thanks for letting us know where ya'll were goin'."

"Hi Rogue. Sorry, we just wanted to get out early."

"Hmmhmm... 'S'kay, Jubes, I'm guessin' the reason wouldn't be 'bout six-three, an' two 'nred 'n twenty pounds of very buff lifegaurd, would it?" He was cute, if you liked guys who pumped iron. But she had a Cajun that fit just nice, thank yah much. She frowned and leaned closer to Tabitha. That was real. "Oh man, da Proffessor is gonna explode."

"It's my arm, I'm an adult. I can get a tattoo if I want one! If thought you and Remy would understand it if anyone did."

Rogue stared at the rose vine that wrapped around Tabitha's arm. "Look, this is all Ah'm going to say: it's yer vacation an' Ah'm not messin' it up. Ah'll tell Kitty to not get on yah, but the Prof is gonna freak."

Tabitha rose up on her elbows, glaring over her sunglasses. "Oh, come on Rogue, not all of us are goodie two shoes like Kitty! We need to live a little, we can't all put ourselves in little boxes that beep at eachother and call it a life. I'm just glad for her sake that you and Kurt pull her out into the real world."

Rogue shook her head. This had been going on for a year- nothing major, just grumpiness and surliness. Tabby hadn't failed to follow an order in training, her grades were as ok as they'd ever been, but it was obvious she was pissed with Kitty for something. Rogue wondered if Tabby had noticed that she wasn't being assigned to missions, that she was being put on the bench. "Don't know what yer issue is with _Miss_ Pryde, _Tabitha_, but if yah don' get it under control I'll bring that up with the Professor to. An' with Magnus."

That didn't have quite the delivery she wanted. Magnus only wanted to be called Magnus. Not Erik, certainly not Mr. Lehnsherr- he wouldn't even respond to Congressmen who called him that. Magnus and Boomboom had gotten close since he'd come to the Institute. Nothing improper, more like how Rogue and Kitty and Kurt were all close to Logan. Tabby was the last of Magneto's Brotherhood, but they had something more, they were on the same vibe, the same wave length. If anyone could get to their blond rebel's head, it was Magnus, not the Professor. Rogue would always think of him a Magneto first, the bad guy and the guy who'd done something to Kurt, but the Professor was giving him a second chance and Remy trusted him, that counted for a _lot_. Rogue had a feeling the lecture would be of the 'you want to end up like me? you can do better' variety more than anything, but it might not be a bad idea.

Tabitha scowled. "I'm playing nice with Ms Kitty. Ain't a big deal, we just disagree on a lot of things." And if people didn't know why she was annoyed with Shadowcat, that was their loss. They should open their eyes, see her for the little tramp she was. Tabby flopped back to the sand. "I'm not a little kid any more, Rogue."

"Nope, yah ain't. Which is why Ah'm not getting between yah two, 'less yah make me."

_---sb4_

It had been more than 38 hours since the last tornado. Yesterday they'd had no sign of anything.

Scott had replaced Jean and Bobby with Hank and Jamie- they could guard the Sheriff and not leave them open to the criticisms that having Jamie in the field might have invited. Jean had suggested it initially, but he wanted to give Roberto's back some time to start to heal; talking with the Professor last night had confirmed that one of their fair weather friends might bring Jamie's age into the picture. Scott knew he was getting tired if he hadn't thought of that.

That was the main reason he wasn't in the pilot seat. If he was making small tactical mistakes like that, then he had no business up front. Storm had the stick, with Bobby at her side. Instead, he was looking at fresh data. It had come from Magnus, who'd traded it with the state command center for imagery taken by _Blackbird_''s cameras. He hadn't been authorized to do it, but he also hadn't divulged anything significant about their capabilities. Going off and doing something without running it past the team was one of the reasons why Scott hadn't been thrilled to learn that their old enemy was joining them.

That, and Magnus didn't fit into any category right. He was too old to be student, but he refused to be an instructor the same way the X-men were. He didn't want to have to give an order in a fight and take the responsibility if it all failed. Instead, he'd either advised his team leader in exercises, or he'd had a small group of one or two students with him separated from the main group. And he insisted that he was actually a student, he was taking ethics and tactics and other really basic classes with the others. He was tutoring several in languages, history and physics, but he wasn't teaching any one class. He made Scott's world... untidy.

Or maybe, as Jean said, he was holding a well deserved grudge. She admitted she was.

He paused, grunting softly. That was odd. It hadn't looked like much, some kind of above ground sprayer system, at least from the fifty thousand feet they'd been cruising at. The picture wasn't as good as what the _Blackbird_'s cameras could show, but from a lower altitude... "Magnus, have you ever seen this before?"

Magnus leaned closer, adjusting his reading glasses as he frowned. "I'm not sure. You do not believe it is farm equipment, do you. What was this from..." He brought the image up on his own screen. He'd started at one end, Scott at the other, working towards eachother. He wished that the elder Summer's boy would someday forgive him the madness; the younger one was starting to.

Magnus felt his spine tighten, and his guts chill. "It could be what we are looking for... But it can't be."

"What is it?"

Magnus cleared his throat nervously. "It is similar in general design to something I contemplated once, but I couldn't find a suitable power source. If it is what I fear it might be, it is how our opponent is able to do this. It magnifies powers, similar in nature to Cerebro but very different in effect." He shook his head. "It doesn't gather, it projects."

"With enough power, how much magnification."

Magnus lifted his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose. It wasn't that they hurt- they had neither nose pieces nor temples, they were just frames with lenses, held by his powers. He was thinking back through the years. "With enough power, you could shatter the moon, Scott. The problem is that to get any reasonable power levels, you have to power it with a nuclear reactor or a volcano, neither of which are easily found in Kansas. And it would magnify any radiation sources inside it, any one inside of it would find a simple radio like we carry suddenly as powerful as being inside a microwave. A light bulb would turn into a furnace. It would kill them in short order, that is the other reason I shelved it."

"Who knows about this thing?"

"I would have said no one an hour ago. The Acolytes might have had access to the files, but I doubt they ever even looked in my filing cabinets." He frowned. "And Mystique, at least to the preliminary drawings. That was almost twenty years ago." Before Kurt was born. Someone else who's forgiveness he prayed for.

He looked at the screen again, magnifying the image, asking the computer enhance it as much as it could. "If it is mine, who did you sell it to, my dear Raven...."

Up front, Bobby blurted "Talley-ho!" as the aircaft's engines changed slightly in pitch and the nose dropped. Storm's voice was fully in control as she spoke into her headset. "X-Ray-Bravo-One rogers the coordinates and is inbound."

"Storm, cancel that, new location!"

"Are you sure, Scott?"

Magnus answered instead. "Not entirely, but it might take us to the source."

Storm banked the aircraft to a new heading, telling air control that they were following up a lead and were going to a different location. There was the slight shudder in the airframe as they broke the sound barrier.

_---sb4_

Laura chewed a juniper berry until her mouth felt like it belong to a human and she'd sucked out the moisture, then spit it out. The seeds might take root. The flavor was too strong, it might have been enjoyable diluted, but she often felt that way about people's cooking. When she was in the kitchen for her weekly chores, people said her cooking was bland.

There had been frost on the ground and trees when they'd woken up, but between the heat of the small fire being reflected down by their tarps and their clothing they'd been warm. She was watching the frost melt as the sun touched it, almost instantly dissapearing from the leaves and rocks into the ground.

"Come on, let's go check the traps." Logan was putting on his pack.

Laura hadn't liked that they had put out live traps. But this was training. She'd need to know how to do this if she was ever on the run again and had to live off the land. The Professor had shared his nightmares with her during the counciling sessions, and for something like a round up or attack, she'd rather stand and fight. The Institute was her home, its walls would not fall, but he'd given her a mission. He'd entrusted her to make sure that the other students were safe. She had more combat experience than anyone there but Logan, Magnus and the Professor, and she'd been made for covert warfare. Before they'd left with Kurt and Remy, Professor Xavier had asked her if she would accept that duty if she decided to stay.

She had told him she'd have to think about it. But in her head, it had been the staying part of that that been in question.

She'd had a bad dream last night. Not a nightmare, just a bad dream. Maybe something of the Professor had been trapped in her head, because she'd dreamed of men in black with weapons entering the mansion at night, while helicopters filled the sky. She'd been the last one into the tunnel, and had taken rear guard as they ran. She knew she'd do anything to protect them, take care of them, even if was something she didn't much like. That might mean running to the Canadian north, and never coming back.

That might mean killing something that didn't need to die, to.

She was bothered by the fact that Logan was having a bad dream as well, when she woke up.

Laura checked that her ruck was closed, and pulled it on. They weren't breaking camp, just doing errands, but they both wanted to have at least some of their gear with them.

_---sb4_

Scott knew they were onto something. Something was trying to kill them.

The tornado behind them had stopped. But the area they were trying to get to had five more swinging around it, orbiting it. They couldn't drop below the cloud level, or they'd be thrown across the sky if they weren't simply shredded like the news helicopter that had tried to see what was of interest to the mysterious "X-ray-Bravo aircraft." They were bucking turbulence unlike anything any of them had seen before, especially when one of the guarding tornadoes passed below them.

Scott wasn't bothering to look, but the images that the cameras were getting were probably pretty impressive. The real data was from the millimeter wave radar- the W-band set was one of the more semi-legal items on board, and it was quickly building an image. Then it would fail. Over and over. Eventually the computer concluded their was a hardware fault and gave up.

"It's moving too fast for the radar to scan it and get a good image."

"But that means it is changing a hundred times per second."

Magnus laughed. "Thousands, my boy, thousands of times a second if RHMP!" They'd just taken a fifty foot altitude change in a couple seconds from the turbulence. "If it is my creation. What is he powering it with?"

Roberto winced, he could feel that a stitch had torn on that last bounce. He wasn't the only one who's body didn't like this. He was at the flight engineer's panel, and it was lighting up. The nicest color there was ambery-orange, there was as much red. There was now one blinking red, quickly, as details came up on the panel. "Storm, alarm left landing gear hydraulics, something in that last one must have pulled a line free. And half the board is steady-red."

That wasn't a major problem. They had other ways of lowering the landing gear, including just opening the doors and letting gravity lower them, but they'd never landed _Blackbird_ on a potentially unlocked gear before.

"Storm? I've got all kinds of warnings back here!"

"I heard you. I'm going to bring her down. We're going to have to come in by ground."

Amara was greatful. She hated flying, she always felt queezy when she wasn't on the ground, but this was the most airsick she'd ever been. Her nose burned, despite being stuffed full of snot. She'd been able to grab the bag fast enough, but she really wanted to wash her mouth out.

Jean wasn't so lucky- with the turbulence, she'd somehow gotten some in her hair, or maybe her hair had just gotten in the way. As ick as it made her feel, being on flat land meant they'd have to drive in. No sensors, no armour, and it would take a couple hours to get back here. By that time, their enemy could be anywhere.

But she had had the "that shadow moved" sensation again.

_---sb4_

Two of the deadfalls has been tripped, and one did catch a ground squirrel. Laura had felt a little queasy cleaning it, but she'd volunteered to do so. She'd seen plenty of animals with their insides on the outside, mostly human, almost always be her own doing. "Good bye, little one. Thank you for your sacrifice."

When she was done, she slid it into one of the large zipper bags she carried and put the body into her pack. That was when she saw that Logan was looking at her, a confused expression on his face. She'd done it right, it was little flat from the rock falling on it, but that was the whole point. "What? What did I do wrong?"

"Nothing, you did it fine." He knew he was frowning, but it wasn't direct at her, but at himself. He knew Sam, Dani and RJ had hunted before coming to the Institute, and Dani probably did thank her prey. But watching and listening to Laura had tickled something in the black gulf of his past. "Where did you learn to thank them?"

Laura shrugged. "It seemed right. It didn't _need_ to die, we do have food. But we _want _meat." They hadn't brought a lot of food, to be sure, but they each had a water bottle of rice, and some bullion cubes, and he had coffee and she had hot chocolate. They could survive for a week on what they carried if they didn't mind being a little hungry.

"Laura, I've watched you thank carrots in the garden." She thanked all her food. It wasn't like when Kurt said grace, he was thanking a deity. She was thanking what she ate.

She blushed. She knew it was weird, she was weird, she wasn't normal. She wasn't blending in. "I'm sorry. I'll stop."

"Don't." Logan wrapped his arms around her, rubbing her cheek with his. It wouldn't too long, two years, maybe one, and she'd be taller than him. "It's ok, you aren't doing anything wrong. I'm just curious."

"Lo-gan!" She squirmed free. Yes, there were times she wanted to be hugged, and there were times she didn't- he didn't always know when in either case. She stepped back. "I just think that we should thank our food. It didn't make a choice, we decided it had to die and most of it didn't do anything to endanger us." She frowned. "Killing someone and eating them without their permission is rude. You should apologize, you and Ororo and the Professor are always telling us to remember our manners."

Logan tipped his hat back, scratching his head. Made more sense than most such explanations.

_---sb4_

The Suburban bounced slightly on the potholed dirt road. They were close to what they were provisionally classifying the epicenter of the tornadoes. Even five miles away, they could see furrows torn in the ground by the guarding tornadoes earlier today.

Sheriff Szilard's people had been able to provide them with information about the location. It was owned by someone who gave their profession only as 'inventor', and had developed some interesting alternative energy patents in the past few years. But there had been nothing new, and he'd apparently become a recluse, about a year and half ago. The facility had a huge bank of experimental photocells and wind turbines. Magnus was frankly doubtful that it was able to work, but if they were dealing with a latent telekinetic, then maybe it was possible to start the system with the stored energy, use that to magnify the telepathic ability, which became a self sustaining reaction.

It was possibly a huge violation of the laws of thermodynamics; Isaac Newton was rolling over in his grave.

Jean had told them that with the Cerebro helmet she had here, she could barely sense the presence of the person or persons. That was chilling news to many of them. Magnus was worried that more of his technology was in the wild. Storm was concerned that there might be mutants that couldn't be detected by Cerebro. Bobby offered the oddest worry- maybe Twister wasn't a person, but a machine.

_---sb4_

Charles Xavier pulled the jungle fatigues up over his legs, fastening the webbing belt. He'd already taped the buckle so it wouldn't rattle. He felt like he was going into the treeline alone again. He shook his head, chasing off the old memories. They'd been with him all day, the nightmares had tried to visit him last night.

There weren't many of them left from back then. As he grabbed the fabric of his pants leg, pulling the immobile flesh closer to him so he could pull on a canvas jungle boot. Lacing it up, he knew that these were new. Henry had made these utilities. They were a perfect match to the ones from almost forty years ago. Charles remembered the young pilot called 'Stitch' who barely fit into the cockpit of the Skyraider he flew- it was almost unbelievable that they'd meet again back in New York. They'd all been young then, scared and invincible and very vulnerable in a far away place. He laced up the other boot. He'd bought this pair two years ago, they'd only been to Egypt, but when he saw them, he could remember the smell of someplace just as hot and much more humid.

Charles pulled the chair closer, taking both arm rests in his hands, lifting and pivoting into the stainless steel frame. He picked up the Cerebro helmet from the night stand, and slid it on, then pulled on leather gloves. Back then they'd wrapped themselves in metal to.

Strong hands gripping the pushrims of his chair, Charles Xavier felt younger than he had in a long time. He was sitting in the chair he used when he played basketball with the kids, it was light enough he could right himself if he got tipped fighting. He opened each of the bedroom doors in the dorm wings, often shaking his head at the disorder, and wedged the hall doors themselves open. He turned off the lights, then lit two candles. From the candles, he lit several sticks of incense.

In the center of the library, he clapped his hands, three times. "I know you can hear me. You didn't attack Laura, you used her fears and those of her friends to cover your tracks. You came for me last night- did you find my nightmares inedible? Were they more than you could take? You couldn't keep them straight. You have invaded my home. Attacked my children. And now you will leave."

The Professor closed his eyes. He let himself slip free of his fleshy prison, projecting himself beyond his body. If the worry that Dani and others had was true, this was the fastest, most effective way. But he didn't like it. He didn't know what to call this... 'spirit', but it didn't feel that old, it's mind was young, but angry and cruel.

_'Lets dance, old man.'_

**---Author's Notes:  
**I'm what I describe as "non-denominational animist", and I thank my food. Because it really is very rude to kill someone without their permission, and even with their permission, it isn't very comfortable if not done right.

And I hope I'm not the only one who digs Magnus' glasses, the design seemed right for him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Spring Break **

_--- Day 5, Wednesday_

"Do you yield?" Charles checked the circular sweep of his scythe-like weapon, holding it with the long blade a high port, the spear tip at the other end pointed at the throat of the enemy who lay face up before him. Xavier was the victor in the pre-dawn of the spirit plane, lit only by the life force of the living things around the combatants. The bulk of the Xavier mansion loomed like a cliff face behind them.

The intruder had taken a roughly human form, about the size of a tall girl or slender boy, a shape that it knew Xavier would be somewhat reluctant to strike. It was a featureless shape despite its size, its surface rippling like water in a strong breeze with a color that defied description. "Do you care?"

"I am a teacher, not a killer." Charles could see the tears in the psychic fabric that his opponent's form was woven from. "I help young people."

"Yes you do, you care so much you send them to fight and die for you. And when your private army becomes something beyond your control?" It was young in feel, but only in a relative sense. It had knowledge beyond it's experience. "Will you strike them down like you did young enemies once?"

"Who are you?"

"I have many names, Chuck." As it spoke, the figure settled on the appearance of Wolverine, borrowing his voice. "A great many indeed." Almost without seeming to change, it mimicked Magnus. "Perhaps a student you didn't want to help enough." Wanda leapt to her feet. "Or perhaps, someone even closer." It took the shape of a blond young man.

"David?" The scythe evaporated. "Son? Why did you do this? You could have come to us, we would have helped you. Please," Charles held his hand out, "let me help you, David."

The intruder lashed out with a vicious backhand, throwing Xavier's psychic form off it's feet. It shifted in a way utterly in human, shifting about where it hipbones would have been rather than stepping forward with it's kick, catching Xavier across the side of his head before he hit the ground. As it struck, it lost it's features and form to return to the mind bending uncolor it had been before. "You weak minded fool." A stinger-tipped tail twisted around Charles' throat, squeezing, lifting him from the ground. "There is no truth in form here, only the truth of the moment."

Xavier's will twisted his shape, forging his hand into a blade as the other wrapped around the stinger. With blazing eyes, Charles severed the serpentine limb. The tip writhed in his hand as it tried to strike, the owner screaming in pain. "Creature be gone, I banish you from this place."

"Oh, I'll go, old man, but you can never bar me for good without my real name. And maybe, just maybe, I'll visit your meat body as I go." It started to back away, towards the mansion's echo in the spirit plane. "Empty, defenseless, alone, shame if something happened to it." With a mad cackle, it flew off at great speed."

"NO!" Charles gave chase as his stomach twisted in a knot of terror. If his body was killed without his spirit in it, he wasn't sure what would happen. He feared that he would stranded in this plane, almost but not touching the one he was home to. He could see the shadow of his body, sprawled on it's side but still strapped into the chair. He dove into it, ready to push out something that was trying to take up house keeping.

The Professor's eyes snapped open. He could see hear, smell, feel. He could taste blood in his mouth. He could move his fingers. He could feel the pressure on his weight on his legs; he tried to move them. "No, I couldn't be that lucky."

He was alone again. It had been a ruse to force him to retreat, while his opponent fled.

He pushed himself up, the light, agile wheelchair squeaking slightly in protest. He looked towards the windows at the growing light. There was a darkness on the glass. Charles squinted, studying it in the near dark. Molten wax had been smeared on the window, 'next time old man' was scrawled in a clumsy hand.

_---sb5_

Magnus passed the binoculars to Ororo. "Without actually being closer, I would say yes, it is probably my design."

"Wonderful. So what are the weak points?"

"The whole thing. It is a precision machine Bobbie, any of us could destroy it while in operation. Normally I'd say the power source but I do not know how it is being powered."

They had left the van several miles ago. The repeated passes of the tornadoes had dug a series of trenches around the device, the only way from here in was to walk or to fly and while some could have been carried it wouldn't have been stealthy.

Storm leaned her elbows against the wall of the trench as she looked through the field glasses. They'd crossed a couple already as they got closer, all of them had dirt clinging to them wetly. "I see no vehicles, but anything could be hidden in those buildings. Jean, do you feel anyone?"

The redhead rubbed her temples. Without the helmet, there was nothing. She had accepted that it wasn't a glitch or a data artifact, this part of Cerebro _almost_ seeing someone. Or had been. Maybe. It was like watching a far away television station, trying to find the image in the snow. She saw something and focused on it, but it slipped away when she did. "I don't know."

"Don't strain, Jean. If you can't sense anyone, we'll go in like we knew someone was there." That meant moving slowly. It might take them an hour just to get a mile closer.

_---sb5_

The retreating storm had left some halfway decent waves as it blew out to sea. Alex eyed them regretfully- he hadn't brought a board, there was too much continental shelf here to get good waves regularly, and the few places where he might be able to rent one weren't going to open for hours. As he ran through the waves, he couldn't bring himself to break these ones before they hit.

Instead, he let them slam into him. Several times they tumbled him. He'd let himself fall and pull himself up again. One was able to grab him, pulling him out sea. He knew better than to fight it once he was on the surface, he'd just tire himself out.

He was aware of the possible under tow as he swam towards the beach, mostly paralleling the shore, but where there were waves there usually wasn't much of a rip. He pulled himself out of the water near a group on the beach. Now that he wasn't focused on swimming, he saw there were half as many people as he thought- they had shortboards. One waved to him, calling out "Yo, you okay man?"

He grinned as he flipped his hair out of his eyes. "Yeah, just a little water logged. I've been down here all week and I haven't seen anyone with a board."

"First ridable waves all week." A dark haired girl spoke up. "Usually too flat this time of year, we have to drive to get something good. Was it a rip that caught you?"

"Nah, just got knocked down by a wave and pulled out a little." He pulled off his shirt, wringing it out. He looked around and laughed. "Or maybe more than a little. I hadn't been down this far." He knew he was south of anywhere he'd been before.

"I think I recognize you from somewhere... Don't tell me, let me think..." A tall, lanky kid scratched his head. "Masters, right? You used to do the junior pro circuit."

Alex grinned. This was the first time he'd found fans on the Mainland. "Guilty, call me Alex. You guys live around here?"

"Yeah. What brings you to our part of the world?"

"Spring break- I go to school in New York now, its school thing."

"New York, something about a private school..." The headscratcher was thinking again.

"Don't mind Chris, he's got a mind like a smoothie. Fruity and jumbled." The girl giggled. "You should get your board, the waves will probably be here until lunch time."

"Didn't bring one, but I could rent one." He looked around again, trying to figure out quite where he was, when Chris snapped his fingers.

"I remember. You got kicked out of being a mutant- anything having to do with the ones in Kansas?" The local surfers took a step back. A couple muttered. One looked up at the sky with concern- yeah, like he was going to summon a water spout.

"My big brother and our teachers are there. Why?" This is what he was afraid of; unlike many of the others, his outting had been public. Someone learned his little secret, and started to accuse him of throwing the results. He'd shown them that he couldn't do that, he didn't have control over the waves, all he could do was shoot beams of energy out of his hands.

Beams that could put a hole in a brick wall or shatter bones or destroy a surf board.

He had to sign an agreement that so long as he surfed, he wouldn't use his powers. He could be a mutant or a surfer. It was embarrassing, but the officials had said they'd keep it quiet. Only event organizers and medical staff had to know. But the word was out anyway; no one wanted to be near him in the heats. Some tried to start stuff on the beach.

Yes, Alex had kicked that one guy, after being grabbed by the guy's two buddies. 'No freaks on the beach.' But all Alex had done was defended himself, he hadn't used his powers, and the other two had pounded on him for it.

And he was the one thrown out of surfing for disrupting the competition. OK, there he'd used his powers, he'd shot the event banner after he was kicked out, holding his cracked ribs with the other hand, blood from his nose and lips dripping off his chin. It had been his fault.

His mom had insisted he file charges, but it wasn't worth it. Private event, and he'd been disqualified. He'd called Scott late that night, catching his older brother first thing in the morning. The Professor and his parents had talked. His folks had wanted him to tough out the school year, then he could go to the Mainland.

He looked back at the locals. "You know what, never mind."

He turned and started jogging back along the beach. Alex Masters had been the surfer. Alex Summers was the X-man.

_---sb5_

Bobby and Magnus came out of the last of the outbuildings, making a hand sign. Zero occupants. Maybe it was possible for someone to have slipped past them, they didn't have a lot of people, but Storm was above them, she would have seen something.

"Now what?"

"Now we examine this machine, to see if it truly is what we fear."

Scott grabbed the older man by the arm. "Slowly. Let's not blow a hole in the sky accidentally or anything."

"I was going to look for notes. Or schematics, or an access panel, but I have no intent to power it." Magnus shrug ed his arm. "Please release me."

"Hey, it's your machine! How do I know you won't use it?"

"Because I have no desire to die today." Magnus could feel the metal on Cyclops' person, he could pin this boy to the wall.

"Both of you, end this! This is no time for your petty squabbles." Both of them felt the push on wind on their chests, pushing them apart, and slamming them into walls apart from each other. Storm ignored the glare from Jean; it had been almost two weeks of the two men glaring and sniping at each other. "You are X-men! You are instructors of X-men! Tell me this is how you should act in the face of danger!" Storm landed lightly. "Tell them." Her hand wave took in Bobbie, Amara and Roberto.

_---sb5_

Charles surveyed the disorder.

The library looked like a rhino had stampeded through it. Books off the shelves, the library computer was scattered in it's major parts- nothing looked damaged in either case, just disassembled. At least it hadn't taken the shelves off the walls. One of the tables hadn't been so lucky, it was crack in half

He felt like a rhino had stampeded through him, to. His hand felt like it had been stomped on, his ribs hurt, and he had a lovely cut on his forehead. That had been messy. He looked down at the carpet- yes, there were little splotches of red here and there.

He wasn't a telekinetic. But it didn't mean that he was limited to his chair. He might have to do it one book at a time, but he would return each of them to their proper place.

He picked up the claw-like grabber and sighed.

No, he wasn't limited at all.

It was this thing or crawl around on the floor. He threw the claw on the table. He'd at least be able to pick up the books in a civilized fashion.

He leaned down for the first book, glancing it. "Well, hello. I forgot I had you. Maybe I should hire a librarian along with a doctor." The chaos momentarily forgotten, the Professor opened a battered copy of _Tobin's Spirit Guide, Vol 1: Characterization and Classification of Noncorporeal Entities._

_---sb5_

Storm closed her cell phone. She'd asked Sheriff Szilard's people to check with the DMV on vehicles registered to this address, and to the company. They'd failed to eliminate two vehicles. "We are looking for a green pickup truck, or a fourwheeler, or both."

Amara rolled her eyes. "Storm, those aren't exactly hard to find around here."

"Have they finished looking for the plans?" Scott and Magnus both agreed that they needed to get everything they could.

Cyclops dumped a large sack full of papers and CDs on the ground with a thud. "Think so. And Bobby found the power supply."

"Yes, he did." Magus muttered in German. "It shouldn't be enough; Amara, your idea about the amplifier being a perpetual motion machine was not as ridiculous as I first believed. He is using two amplifiers, one to magnify the functional output of the power stored from these," he motioned to the solar panels mounted on the sides of the buildings and by extension the solar and wind farm around them, "to power the second one, which was apparently boosting his abilities. And yes, I know, that should be impossible."

"OK, so are we going to destroy it?" Jean was of mixed feelings- keeping it intact would mean that someone would get a chance to examine it, maybe even make more. But was evidence in what would be one of the largest murder trials of all time.

_---sb5_

"What is it like to start over?"

"With what?" Starting over again was wasting time, in Logan's opinion. When he was bored enough to do a crossword, he used a pen.

"Everything. Getting a new life."

"You mean waking up at the past is mostly a blank? Like I did after Weapon X?" She nodded. "Why."

"I wonder about it. If I woke up tomorrow, knowing nothing, and my friends were there to teach me who I'm supposed to be, who would I turn into? Would I still be Laura?" She picked up a rock, turning it in her hand.

"Even if you remembered things like how to read and write, I wouldn't recommend it. You don't know if you were a good person or evil, you wonder if you were as much a monster in the past as you might be." Logan really didn't like that question. "You don't lose it all, but what you see..." He trailed off, staring at nothing.

"Logan?"

"I see flashes sometimes. Fights. Men and woman, little kids. Bleeding, stabbed, cut, shot, burned." He shuddered as he took off his pack, kneeling. "Some are dead, some begging and screaming for help and pity, others wanting to die. And you don't know if you did it, maybe there was a reason or maybe there wasn't if you did, or if you helped the hurt and avenged the the innocent. Or if you just walked on past 'cause it ain't your problem. You find yourself doing things you don't remember learning how to do like scuba diving. You hear hear a language you can't even name, and you understand it. That is the one that makes my skin crawl."

He drunk from one of his water bottles, capping it before continuing. "Why are you asking? Did Charles offer?" _He better not have._

"No. He told me it doesn't work very well, not for long periods of time."

The sat there for a while, each one thinking. "I envy you."

"Me? Why?" Laura was surprised. Why should he envy her her memory. Her nightmares.

"At least you know what you did. The only solid memories I have are about Cap, but past that, I have no solid idea of who Logan was prior to cutting my way out of Weapon X. Or if it's even my real name. For all I know, Logan is my last name. Hell, I'd almost like to know why Sabertooth hates my guts." He sighed, drinking from his bottle again. He continued. "The past can't be changed, any more than we can bring the dead back to life. Bury it and move on."

She sipped from the bladder in her pack. As Laura thought, she watched a tiny, bright pink and white spider sitting on a branch. It was making something from it's web, it almost looked like a balloon.

He stood back up, slinging his pack. "You ready?"

_---sb5_

They had scoured the buildings as best they could before the police had shown up. Sheriff Szilard's deputy forms would have let them stay around, but their investigation was over. Besides, the Professor had been quite clear, they were not to give the appearance of working with the military, and they were going to be there within the hour.

They had spent several hours in the van, bouncing along roads in various states, every eye open for the missing green pickup. They finally stopped at the hospital where the Sheriff was still being guarded by Beast and Multiple. In the waiting room, Hank and Magus were pouring over technical drawings as soon as the nature of the device was explained. "My stars... It isn't perpetual energy, it just somehow increases the output of the power supply until it is exhausted."

"That would explain why the storms dissipated almost instantly. Look, here, this is a much more refined version of the quanta bridge I had designed. Dear God, he made it work!"

"A quanta bridge? Are you saying this thing borrows energy from other locations in the universe? Magnus, I'm shocked. That you'd even think of trying it is reckless and dangerous..."

"I did not think of it, Magneto did." A fine distinction, but one he'd stand by until the day he died. "We didn't know how stupid that was 20 years ago, forgive me. If had suspected it had the ability to pull part of this world into a different location in time space, I would have burned the plans."

"Having been on your bad side, I'm glad to be working _with_ you. This only confirms it. I wish Forge was here, he understands this kind of thing better than I do."

Multiple looked up at Jean. "How much of that do you understand?"

"I'm not even sure it is English."

In the Sheriff's room, Scott finished briefing the older man.

"Good work, Scott. And don't worry about it being misused, I'll try to get the machine classified as too dangerous to be left around, destroy it after the trial. Maybe even before." He gestured at his leg, there were going to be at least two more surgeries to fix it. "Going to be on a cane until then, at least."

"Sheriff, I've been wondering. What happened to your uncle?"

"The mutant one? He went to the East Coast. After a few months, he just disappeared. Couple times a year, he sends a post card from someplace, all over the Atlantic coast, and not just in the US. Brazil, Ivory Coast, France, he even spent two years in the Med. He signs them all 'from the Atlantis frontier'."

"Atlantis?"

"Yeah. Guy with gills, it makes you wonder."

_---sb5_

"So, you haven't told me if you are staying at the Institute or not." That was the reason they'd come out here, was for her to decide. And hopefully get better. She'd seemed better the moment she stepped out of the plane, but it had been too fast. "I almost expected you to want to scream or run or something like that, to get it out."

Laura stared into the flames of the small fire. Normally she could see images in it, figures, dancing. Storm said they'd be called salamanders, but salamanders were amphibians, they'd die in the fire. They were flame colored and small and maybe even cute. She didn't believe in spirits, at least she didn't think she did. It had to be a kind of hypnosis that let her see the little humanesque forms celebrating in the flames, or images of things that might be.

Tonight, she could only see people who mattered to her. Who she'd been hiding from. Magnus. Danielle. Betsy. Storm. Kitty and Rogue. Alex. The Professor. Logan. Their faces looked at of the fire at her. "I know you are disappointed with me."

He jumped at the statement. She'd been quiet for over an hour before he asked if she had made a decision, but that wasn't the reason he was startled. No, he wasn't disappointed in her. In himself, sure, but not her. She was smarter than he was, and faster. That she was prettier went without saying. "What are you talking about? I'm not disappointed in you, who told you that?"

"No one did. Just feels like you are, or should be. I would be." She flicked one of the failed and broken pieces from her attempts to make a deadfall trigger into the fire. "What is is you want from me Logan?"

"I..." He frowned. He could feel the answer to her question. Saying it wasn't easy. It wasn't so much that he wanted anything from her. Maybe someone better at speaking could do it, like the Professor or Storm or Hank. Even Magnus could probably do a better job of this. "I guess I want _for_ you to be happy and healthy and safe, have the life you want. What normal people want for their kids."

"We'll never be normal."

He sighed. "I know. But we can get close. Yeah, we're throwing ourselves in front of danger and most people never know about it. But we can be almost normal." He was quiet for a long time, looking into the flames. They were lecturing him, pointing out everything he'd done wrong as a father. "I'm sorry."

"For?"

"For hoping something for you that maybe you don't want. When I found out you existed, I was mad. They'd stolen a part of me. But they also gave me something I'd never have any other way. I listened to the students talking about their families, watched normal families, and part of me wondered what it was like."

They both wanted the same thing, and maybe they were the biggest barriers to that.

"I wanted to have that when I first saw it, to, but we can't." She sighed dejectedly. "We just can't."

"We can try. Look, Laura, I don't need you to call me 'dad' or 'father'; you call me 'Logan' or 'last years model' or even 'Bub'. And you can think of me as your prototype or as your genetic donor if you want. I don't mind." His eyes were regretful. "But it doesn't mean I won't try to keep you from getting hurt, or want you to be happy."

It was Laura's turn to be quiet. "We can't be normal." She kept running into that in her mind. No matter what they did, short of pulling out their claws and pretending that they could get hurt like everyone else, they could never even pass for normal. They weren't made that way, they would never be able to settle for ordinary lives that could be exposed to the world, they'd have to remain in the shadows. They were weapons, destroyers. They were as close to immortal as you could be and still bleed- with their training, they were practically war gods. "Normal fathers and daughters have fights and laugh and go camping and have tea parties. Normal fathers want to kill their normal daughter's normal boyfriend. Normal fathers and daughters don't jump out of airplanes or scuba dive or climb rock faces or take on giant killer robots and wizards intent on taking over the world. Normal fathers and daughters don't blow up terrorist bases. Normal daughters have normal friends, not ones who can walk through walls or steal your mind or read your mind or making playing cards blow up."

He looked at her over the flames. He wasn't sure where this 'normal' stuff was coming from. He started ticking points off on his fingers. "One, we fight. A lot, we just do it quietly- we use body language and stares, not screaming and slamming doors. We're both pig headed, short tempered and neither one of us likes to lose.

"Two, we are camping. We both want to run away from the whole damn world sometimes and just be someplace where the blacktop ain't and you can see the stars.

"Three, don't you think sometimes maybe I want to stuff Alex's head in Remy's pickle jar?" He knew Alex always expected to die around him, but he actually liked Slim-2, he was a good kid. Hell, he knew Alex had pocketed condoms when they were prepping the safety gear for the dive class and hadn't said a thing. And in training they moved like they'd been fighting at each others' sides for years. They made a good couple, in battle and out of it. 'Laura Summers' sounded good to Logan's ears, even if he knew it was silly and a long ways off if ever.

"It isn't fair." She flicked a wood chip into the fire, watching it burn. He was using her logic, and proving her wrong. Her logic was impeccable. He'd applied it perfectly. Her denial was strong.

Logan shrugged. "Never said it was. Never met many who said their life was fair I liked that much, either. The Prof says it makes us a little more responsible. Magnus used to say it made us better than most; nuts like Kelly say it makes us less than human. Me, I don't know, maybe it just makes us us, and that's what we have to deal with." He'd been reading parenting books since they met in Canada; he'd read more after scaring Multiple out of a few years of life. Some of it made sense, some of it was just huggy-feely crap. He kind of wished he was a huggy-feely kinda guy right now.

Logan wasn't going to tell her he'd literally hidden on the roof of the school for her first week, afraid she was going to fillet one of the local morons- he knew normal dads supposedly did things like follow school buses the first day, although not for the same reason. He wasn't going to tell her that he'd put a bug on Alex's jacket on their first date, so he could make sure they weren't getting frisky. He wasn't even going to tell her how long he'd stood there watching them have their first kiss, even if it was officially part of an operational cover, or that on the nights when she didn't wake up to take the 0300 round with him, he'd stop at her door and listen to her and her roommates breath in their sleep. He also wasn't going to tell her that if they were normal the way she said it, it would bore them both into a coma in a week.

Damnit, they were _normal_. He pulled his pack over to him "And four...."

Laura frowned. "What are you doing?"

He shook one of his metal canteens, taking off the cap before setting it at the side of the fire to heat. He then pulled out the stuff sack he was keeping his food in, grabbing the tea ball he used for his coffee and a small plastic bag. He opened it and sniffed. The slight breeze carried the scent to her- chamomile, lavender, lemon balm, and rose hips. Her eyes went wide. That was Ororo's bed time tea, for when their weather goddess couldn't sleep. She didn't know Logan drank it. "Oh no, no, we are not doing what I think you are doing. Logan, we are in the _middle of the desert_!"

**---****Author's notes:**  
Yes, there are spiders that make balloons. They are usually the young of smaller species. What they do is make make their balloon, and wait for wind to catch it then they hang on for what has to be one of the wildest rides in the world. It is a cross between hot air ballooning and parachuting, and it gets them into places they could never walk- they can cross oceans and get over all but the highest mountains this way.

And powering the amp makes me twitch. Seriously violates the laws of Newtonian and Einsteinian physics, and bend a few rules of quantum mechanics.

Late night tea parties in the desert... OK, all of you are sworn to secrecy. This never happened. Although Victor might laugh himself to death.

Jeez, ya'll are making me feel OLD. 45 views as of the time of the formatting revision, and NO ONE has commented on the Institute having a copy of _Tobin's_.


	6. Chapter 6

**Spring Break**

--- _Day 6, Thursday_

"There you are." With the voice, he became aware of a soft swik-swik noise, no louder than a butterfly in flight. "Second morning in a row we've missed you at breakfast, Alex. She'd give you hell."

"Sorry. Just been thinking; I don't always realize it is time to turn around." He took the cold bottle of juice Betsy offered him with a smile. He knew she couldn't see it, but she could _feel_ it. He held still as she sat down next to him, her white cane stretching out before her. He'd watched her using the simple fiberglass rod in training- it wasn't a foil, but she could fence with it, and it would raise a welt when it bit.

She didn't look at him, but across the road, towards where she knew the water should be. They were on the roof of the hostel, where there was a patio and lounge area. "Do you think you are the only one who misses her?"

"No, of course not." Alex looked at his friend, reading the lines of hurt and tiredness that she let slip though her mask. The young anglo-chinese warrior had a talent for hiding her emotions, the child of two cultures renowned for being reserved had a special gift for it that had nothing to do with her x-gene. He knew why she looked so tired, to- Laura was the one person who seemed to forget that Betsy was blind. When she had to say something, it was no different than if one of them had their hands full and couldn't see where they were going or there was something behind them. "But maybe I forgot. I'm sorry."

"She loves you, you know." She took off her dark glasses. She didn't do that very often. She turned, looking at Alex. In the strong, clear Florida sunlight, the dark blue of her irises was almost purple, while her pupils shown red, the fluid of her eyes stained with blood from the pressure of the explosion that had brought out her gifts. "In her nightmare, she was saving you and Logan for last. I could feel it."

Alex shuddered. It was hard not to. But Betsy hadn't told him that before. Maybe because he wouldn't have listened. "I've been selfish, haven't I."

"Yes, you have. You big jerk." She jabbed him lightly with her elbow. "I've been ok, I talked to the others. You haven't even talked to Flea about it, or Kurt or Remy. You didn't even talk to the Professor and we had to throw him at you."

"Huh?"

"Why do you think we were doing paperwork and research for him? Kitty and I thought it might get you to talk to him. You could have hurt yourself with some of these stunts you've been pulling; Laura would have my butt if you did. You need to talk to someone."

Alex didn't like the idea of someone peeking in his head. He'd already growled at Jean about her well intentioned snooping. That had really gotten Scott's shorts in a bunch, they hadn't had a fight like that since they were little kids. But he knew Betsy wasn't invading his privacy, she could read him pretty well just of body language.

"Alex, I wasn't reading you- you get all prickly feeling when you think someone is in your head. You and Laura both; like hedgepigs." She slid her glasses back on.

"Like a couple of hedgehogs?" He chuckled as he stood up, holding his hands out to her. "Come here."

She frowned, seeing the pattern of his life force with her telepathy, and took his hands, standing. She smiled as he wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tightly. He stepped back after a moment. "You know, you could find yourself a guy of your own to worry about. It's not like there is any shortage of volunteers."

Her eyebrow twitched in annoyance. Most of the Xavier students had adopted it, after having been on the receiving side of it from Storm and Logan. "They would all treat me like I was made of glass. I might be blind, but I can still see most things. And I don't know why you blokes think I'm pretty, I have seen myself before." She reached up, stroking the edge of the red birth mark that sketched over her eyes, almost dagger shaped. She knew how bad it looked, and she didn't want their pity. She hated it when people thought of her as the poor little blind girl. "And don't even think of setting me up with your roommate."

"What's wrong with Tim? Other than the fact his mind is in the sewer most of the time." They both laughed- it was true. Tim's public face was that of a 15 year old pervert with a vocabulary that could start a fire and a bad habit of cheating at cards. But they also knew that Flea could be selfless to the point of endangering himself- the public face was to keep the world at bay.

_---sb6_

Jayhawk Control had just contacted them- they had one chance. The green pickup they had been looking for had just been pulled over for what the driver had been told was a bad tail light. The cop had been smart, he wasn't going to take on the monster that had killed over a hundred people, not without a lot of backup. So they now had a location.

At Scott's touch, _Blackbird_ was howling towards that highway. They would make a high altitude pass to confirm their target, and then land for an intercept.

There was a problem. The original description of the owner of the vehicle and the inventor matched. 34 years old. Caucasian male. 5'11, 260 pounds. Hazel eyes. The picture from the department of motor vehicles showed the brownish red hair worn long and tied back, with a full mountain man type of beard, and the pudgy middle that comes from a life spent at a drafting table and before a computer. The trooper had reported that this subject looked closer to 60, and was skinny, almost emaciated. But it had been the same eyes, and the man had given the address quickly, without thinking.

They were loosing speed. Scott wanted to be subsonic when they passed the truck at about fifteen thousand feet- it was low, but they wouldn't stand out like the would if they were going faster than the speed of sound. It also made it easier to find a good spot to land.

If they couldn't do it, there was a rumor that Governor had asked her Oklahoma counterpart if a number of aircraft from that state's Air Guard could be borrowed. Kansas only had tankers and some electronic intelligence aircraft; Oklahoma had a full wing of fighter-bombers.

"The plates are right." Amara had slaved one of the consoles to the forward camera. The lens worked out to twenty power, with another twenty power equivalent of digital enhancement. At this altitude, they couldn't read the screen of a cellphone, but they could watch you dial.

_---sb6_

"Logan, how can you be my prototype?" Her words were harsh, but her tone was teasing as she tore his jeans open further. "Messy. Clumsy."

"Like you've never tripped. You landed in a spruce last time we went cam hrk!" He growled as she aimed her water bladder at the gash in his leg, washing it out. His jaw clenched as she shoved her fingers into the wound, pulling out a sharp flake of rock, putting it into his hand before rummaged around gently for any other debris. They both knew how much it sucked to have something in you, particularly something sharp. He looked down at the flake in his hand- it had been worked, and it was fairly large. Too big for an arrow, it was probably most of a spear head. It had lain in wait for who knew how many centuries, waiting for someone. Logan's foot had sunk through the ground, into the rabbit burrow about five inched below the hillside, then he started to slide. That was when he found this antique, at least it missed anything impor- "HOOROOWWWWW! What the hell was that!"

She held up a small squeeze bottle of dilute provodone-iodine solution that she had pulled from her pack. "Well, you worry about us being poisoned and you _did_ catch a cold. I'm not taking chances, I don't want to have to drag you home with blood poisoning. It would be embarrassing."

"For which one of us?"

She didn't bother to answer as she examined the torn flesh. "I don't feel anything in there, I think I flushed any sand out, but you might have some fine grit in there still. Promise me you won't bleed out in the next five minutes."

"What?"

"Promise! If you bleed to death, I'm going to be really mad at you because I'll have to tell Ororo and the Professor."

"I promise not to bleed to death. What are-"

"Don't move, I'll be right back." She grabbed one of his water bottles, the one he'd emptied earlier, then headed off towards a dead desert pine she'd seen earlier. Yes, that was what she was looking for. With a few fast slashes with her claws, she found what she needed, shaking them into the bottle. "Thank you. I have need of your services, and must steal you from your colony, I'm sorry."

She'd be afraid of getting hurt if she had to wait days or weeks for small cuts and breaks to heal. She'd been shot, stabbed, burned, and broken before. She'd been up and around four days after being hit by a car once. A HYDRA instructor had once taken one of her hands as a punishment, that had hurt a lot. It was about a month to regenerate it, and another month for it to be fully back to normal; that instructor had been punished harshly in turn. She'd spent her time becoming fluent in French. She was nine then.

She went back to where he was still bleeding, slowly now, but still messy. "OK, hold this. Keep the lid on unless I tell you to take it off and shake it into my hand." She waited for him to take it, before pinching the flesh together carefully, so it wouldn't be lopsided looking. "Since neither one of us carried sutures and I don't want to just duct tape this closed so it can drain..." She held out her hand. "Shake."

Between the pain and Laura's commanding confidence, Logan was willing to let her run with this. He could manage just fine with some tape, he'd done it before, but he was watching her react. Watching her lead. He shook the bottle little into her hand. He quirked his eyebrow up when a large ant fell into her hand, at least half an inch long with large fangs.

"Cover!" Holding his flesh in one hand and the ant in the other, she pressed head against his leg. The squirming ant bit down from instinct and fear, the fangs digging into the skin, pinching it together as well as a staple or stitch would, while a little formic acid was squirted in. This carpenter carried nowhere near the bite of an army or fire ant, it still burned as it helped to clean the wound. The ant wasn't aware of it's body being snapped off for several minutes. By that time, Laura had placed another twenty five, sealing the 10" long gash in his thigh.

"Sit, let me find what I can for a crutch for you." She reached into her pack, digging down in the bottom, before she pulled out a pair of lollipops. She held them out to him, "Pick one, because you didn't fuss when I put the ants in."

Wordlessly, he picked one at random. He looked at the sweet in his hand, a color green he normally associated with toxic waste. His leg still hurt, damnit. The cut must have gone down almost to the bone, he watched her looking for debris and her fingers hand been past the second knuckle. He licked the blood off the spear head, before putting it in the small tin he carried his tinder and flint rod in. With a scowl, he drank some water to get the blood taste out of his mouth, then he popped the lollipop in his mouth.

The strength of the sour apple flavor almost brought tears to his eyes. OK, it was good and it took his mind of the itching pain in his leg, but like so many other things about this week, he wouldn't admit to it unless someone else was going to be tortured to get it out of him.

Rather than taking it for herself, Laura gave the second lollipop to the ant colony, whacking it between two rocks first, before returning the workers she hadn't needed. She looked down at the mother-queen of the ant colony, at at least the one she had assumed was. "Sorry for the disruption."

"Oh, you wouldn't know of any place where I can find a good stick, about four feet long, and straight, would you?" She paused for a minute before putting the wood she'd removed back over the opened nest.

Logan wasn't sure if she was actually listening to the ants. Maybe he'd misheard, it was about as far away as he could hear her voice.

And he didn't want to know if she really was talking to bugs. That would just be crazy.

_---sb6_

Cyclops stepped out onto the road, his hand raised, the other on his visor wheel. He normally wouldn't have played in traffic like this, but it was the plan. The driver of the green pickup started to slow and steer away, then the engine revved and the hood ornament looked like a gun sight. Oh yeah, not Grampa Mistaken Identity. It was aiming right at him, over a ton of metal at the hand of an insane killer. One more wouldn't bother whatever conscious Twister had left, Scott would just be a speed bump. A big juicy one that would splat on the windshield like an overgrown junebug. He had to hold his ground. Hundred feet... eight... seventy... sixty... Scott was about to jump.. fifty...

Jean and Magnus both struck at the truck from different angle, throwing it sideways and slamming into the grill. As it was barreled with a noise like an enraged boiler, Scott saw the airbag deploy with it's typical explosiveness. The tires squealed for a second before they gave out, then there was a spray of sparks as the metal screamed on the black top. Once it had lost enough enough speed, it skidded and rolled.

_Scott!_ Jean reached down as she flew over him, grabbing his upraised hands without having to look. They didn't need to do anything so basic anymore, that was why the Professor held them up as an example to other couples. They covered the quarter mile to where the truck lay in just a few moments. _I can barely sense him, it is like he isn't there._

As they landed, the driver's door exploded outward. The man was older, but it was the same one for sure. His smile was horrible, while his almost skeletally slim body moved like like it was about to explode from too much power. Lightening raced towards them, the strikes leaping towards them like a loping beast, the two of them diving aside just before it struck them. The beast had a flaming tail, the line of gas that had spilled from the torn tank and ignited by the electricity.

Amara dropped from Ororo's grasp and rolled,thankful for the padding and thick skin of the jacket that protected her from the asphalt. She knelt before the flames, holding her hands out. Heating things was easy now, she was still working on controlling flames themselves. Magma could feel them, dancing and slithering over the surface of the ground and the pavement, hungry, mindless. She lifted them from the road, cutting them off from their remaining fuel. They flickered and died before the flaming embodiment of the goddess Vesta. She wanted to giggle with joy, she'd never been able to do anything much bigger than a candle before.

Storm rode her own wind, closing with Twister. "Surrender. We do not want to hurt you."

"Too bad, witch!" He thrust with one hand, sending his own blast of air under Storm's, breaking the air cushion she was riding on. Sparks of lightening flickered at the corners of his eyes and mouth, and arced from his feet to the ground. "This is your doing!"

It was only training and grace that allowed her stay on her feet. She struck, this time with a bolt of lightening. He reached up and caught it with his hand, letting it run down and out through the fingers of the other.

While Twister was preoccupied by Storm, Magnus drew several lengths of steel wire rope from around his waist, guiding them to wrap around the enemy.

_---sb6_

Charles glanced in the mirror as he slapped the turn signal on in annoyance. Seeing and sensing no one coming, he pulled from the parking space.

The interview with Cecilia had gone about as well as the first one had. It wasn't being turned down that had him so testy. It was the way she said it. 'I won't patch up your toy soldiers. They might be becoming adults, but they are still children, Charles.'

It was the third time in less than a week someone had accused him of using his students as a private paramilitary force. The Senator. The entity he was still trying to categorize. And now one of their own, a mutant.

"Damnit, is that how we really look?" But he knew the answer. The difference between what he and Erik had believed was less than he'd usually admit in public. He glanced at the people on the sidewalk, the normal, ordinary, mundane humans. He knew that as a group, they feared and distrusted the unknown, and he and his children were something new to them. If he was a more obvious mutant, like Hank or Kurt, some would scream in fear. Someone would shout an insult, a slur. Mothers and nannies would take their children away. The bold and brave would take protective or challenging postures Then a crowd would form.

He knew they would come one day, like a pitchfork and torch bearing mob out of an old movie. His X-men had to be ready for that. They had to be able to defend themselves. He preferred a passive defense, the were to run while a few of the bravest bought them time, but all his kids would fight if they had no other choice. But he didn't want that war, he would do everything in his power to prevent it.

Magneto had wanted to start that war at a time and place of his own choosing. And there was a wisdom to it- if you get to pick the battlefield, you have the initiative. Magnus wasn't sure where he stood now. He still believed that the war was coming, but he knew they were no more ready now than they were twenty five years ago when they had quarreled.

A quarter century. Even if the x-gene did habitually extend the span of ones life, would any of them die in their sleep from old age? A generation's worth of time, wasted. He wasn't sure if he should have been stocking up supplies for this war that might come one day, or if he should have been training more students, or playing the political game.

As he waited at the stop sign, he rubbed his eyes tiredly. He wasn't sleeping. That was part of the problem, it made the difficulties before them seem so much larger. Or maybe he needed a break, maybe he was starting to lose perspective.

_---sb6_

Twister was running, only sporadically able to fly. He'd slow every twenty, thirty yards, twisting to lash out with lightening and softball-sized hail. The X-men were falling back a little bit. They had been concerned that he might try something like this, and they had planned for it. At Scott's signal, there was a glint in the sky.

From above, _Blackbird_ dove like a falcon, pulling out only a few hundred feet above the deck, the thrust from the engines being diverted to stop the jet in hover mode. The down blast was had over 10,000 foot-pounds of force. Only a fraction of that hit Twister, but it threw him through the air like a kite in the middle of it's own dirt storm. In the cockpit, Bobby watched the temperature readings on the engines as he feathered it sideways- they weren't designed to keep the aircraft up by pure brute force for more than a few minutes. He herded the the fleeing killer towards his teammates as they closed in. He pulled further away as the gauges twisted up towards the caution point, and put the wheels into the freshly furrowed field with a soft thud and the squeak of the landing gear's suspension.

He had already released the pilot's harness, twisting free as the computer finished the shutdown cycle, the skin and engines popping as they cooled. He was spinning an icerail for his smooth soled boots to ride before the hatch was even fully open, bringing him down next to Twister as the others got there with him.

There wasn't much finesse as they tackled him.

He thrashed and bucked, writhing in their grasp as they held him down. He looked older now than he had just minutes before, like his powers were aging him. Scott knelt over his back, hands on his shoulders, while Storm and Bobby had an arm. Magnus and Amara wrangled his feet.

Jean held his head. Her grasp was far from gentle as her mind attacked his. He pushed back with his rage, a mental snarl like a wounded beast. She pushed again, harder, feeling his walls crumble before her strength. He was shrieking, threats so horrible as to be ludicrous, as she pushed deeper. As he passed out, she could still feel his mind rioting against her control. That is when she found them.

Images. Sounds. Memories.

Of a happy life. A good life. A man trying to save the world for children he hoped to have with a loving partner, more than just a wife, his equal and compliment in their business and mission. A man devout in his beliefs. A caring man, a giving man. Then that horrible, horrible day. They day the world learned that mutants were really real. The day so many of them had learned what they really were.

People fell in the streets, their bodies, their genes rebelling, changing. Some were murdered where they lay, burned or beaten or crushed as witches and demons. Some died from the changes themselves, the day the X-men fought Apocalypse. In that one hour that it took to get Rogue's team to the Spinx, the ancient madman's dream was barely glimpsed, but it changed thousands. Cerebro had cataloged about twelve thousand, but the Professor estimated that might only be a tenth or twelfth the true number. On a planet of six billion, these were acceptable numbers for saving the world. Theirs had been no hollow victory on what they privately called Apocalypse Day.

Armageddon.

A-Day.

Twister had lived, but his life was ruined. His partner, mate, wife, leaving with their unborn child. His family turning away. His minister declaring him an unholy creature in a stolen human shell.

Twister envied the dead. He was a monster. He did what a monster should.

Jean wept for her enemy.

_---sb6_

This is where they'd been heading when he'd slipped. Now he was just watching her work. If he tried to get up, she'd growl at him, even if his leg was nearly healed.

She was gathering stones, for later. She had said she was tired of running from a ghost, from the past. She knew she could face it if it came back, but she didn't think it would. She was stronger. She was wiser. She was tougher.

She was loved. She was trusted and forgiven.

She had friends. She had teachers and a prototype.

That was why she'd beaten the past. Why she'd changed and evolved.

After several hours, he finally whistled softy to get her attention. "Take a break, I'm getting tired and all I'm doing is watching you."

She glanced at the pile. She had almost enough. "In a bit."

She was true to her word- in about half an hour, she had enough stones. Now she could rest for few minutes. She took a drink from her pack and sat next to him. "Does it hurt?"

"Itches, but thats normal." He stretched his leg. They sat silently for a while.

"Do you think I'll make a good aunt?"

He shook his head and laughed. "Is there something your roommates should be telling the rest of us?"

"No, not yet. Rogue isn't sure if she can have children, and I don't think Kitty and Kurt have done anything yet." She closed her eyes, laying back. "But I wonder if I'll be a good aunt for my friend's children, a good mentor."

"I think you'll do fine. And I think you'd make a good mother, if you ever find the right guy." He watched her for any reaction. There wasn't any. "So, are you an Alex..." _This shouldn't be this hard to say. I can know conceptually that Halfpint and Stripes might be getting it on, but the idea of Laura..._ "Are you two..."

"What? Sexually active? Physically intimate? Understanding the Birds and the Bees?" That was how Scott and Jean phrased it. If he couldn't say it, she would. "Exchanging biological potential? Scratching an itch? Knocking boots? Making the beast with two backs? Riding pogo? Shocking the horses? Spanking the cat? Bumping-" She stopped when he groaned in pain. She looked at his leg, it looked fine. She couldn't keep the tired frustration out of her voice. _Give me some credit. _"No, Logan, we aren't having sex."

"Oh." His guts untwisted. The list of euphemisms had made it worse- Flea just went on his shitlist for all time. "Look, I know you'll know when you are ready, and I'll support you decision. I know you know about the fishbowl in the infirmary, but if you want we can get you the pill or something, you know, just to be sure."

"It isn't needed."

"But I know you two, you both can be impulsive."

"I'm immune to all known illnesses, I can't catch anything. Alex is a virgin. And I can't get pregnant." Her voice didn't change as she unknowingly dropped the grandmother of all bombs on him. "About six months before I left HYDRA, they harvested my eggs. All of them."

Laura was annoyed by it, nothing more. Between the chemical exposures as a HYDRA agent and the limited adamantium treatment, most of them were most likely damaged. She'd read a few of the Professor and Jean's genetics books, just out of curiosity, she knew that the odds were good that of the few thousand eggs HYDRA had gotten only a handful were probably useful. They might have missed a few, but they'd used nanites to scout about in her body, it was unlikely. Besides, as a professional hero, the idea of 'monster stomping' with an big belly sounded too impractical. But they hadn't asked her.

Logan felt light headed. The world was spinning. If he wasn't seated, he'd have fallen. He was fully prepared to find out that she and Alex were having sex. He could have dealt with that, so long as they were safe. But this... This was something different. It was a violation, and he hadn't been able to stop it. It didn't matter that he didn't know she had existed, he hadn't stopped it. He felt he should have stopped it. He could feel the tears in his eyes. He took a breath, ragged and shuddering.

He wanted to scream, but his throat was clenched. He wanted to smash things, kill people, but they were all dead. He couldn't take his vengeance against them again. _Those bastards. Those fucking bastards. Why did they do that to my little girl. Why! WHY!_

"Damn them. Damn them all," he rasped. It was the first time in his memory Logan prayed.

Laura watched him for a moment with growing fear and doubt, then wrapped her arms around him. "Shhhhh... I promise, I'll be a really good aunt."

This was all wrong. This was backwards. Logan couldn't cry. Tears meant you were weak, you were broken. Like her. Logan couldn't be broken. She felt clumsy, stroking his hair hair, holding him. This was Logan. Logan wasn't the prototype, he was the original, she was just a copy made from parts that hadn't been quite right to start. Laura was the knock off.

She had learned it was ok to be weak sometimes, if there were people there to carry you. But no one could carry Logan, Logan was their Atlas...

**---****Author's notes:**  
My mother grew up in west Africa, she has a scar (with a great story) on the back her hand that was stitched with ants. I'm not sure if North American carpenter ants would actually work, but I'd be willing to try the big ones if I had nothing else. The formic acid helps kill any bacteria on the fangs, so it is as sterile as anything out side a proper medical setting will be (and without the MRSA risks- I'd rather get sewn up by a vet in my kitchen than in an ER!), and the chiton is hypoallergenic, so unless you are hyper sensitive to formic acid the only real issues are all psychological.

Thanks to Les Stroud, everyone knows about the agave needle trick now, but there are actually some allergy issues if you can't rinse the slime out, and there wasn't enough spider web around to use it as clotting accelerator. So I went with the ants. Besides, I'd rather have staples than stitches.

The printed version of Magma has, along with the other gifts we've seen in the Evo version, the abilities to shape earth and fire.

Many may know why I'm using 12K changed and known, and twelve times as many actually chosen, but only one of the reasons. Many cultures find the same numbers fascinating.

The Logan as Atlas line was a late addition, added on a whim.

And this HYDRA's final crime, breaking Logan.


	7. Chapter 7

**Spring Break**

Only one day left to go after this. Always come back a day to early, to get over the flight, sleep in and maybe do some laundry.

And I'm not sure, but it almost looks like is stripping out my scene breaks- fraggers. Am I the only getting this? So I've got slightly different breaks here, and will retcon them into earlier chapters, Never Trained and the Holiday trilogy if needed. And fix some grammar and spelling mistakes if people pm them to me. :P

_--- Day 7, Friday_

_--- Kansas_

After Jean explained the source Twister's powers and rage, the results were predictable.

The New Mutants looked down and scuffed their feet- it had been their big day, possibly the biggest day on Earth in decades. They had friends who's lives had taken a major course change; this was the first time that they knew innocent people had died because of one their own kind since then.

Hank frowned, his mind working out how many of the mutants that had been created on A-day were given to antisocial urges, and how many of them would powerful enough to actually be a special threat. Most of those that had been cataloged had no usable power, like the boy who turned blue, or the old lady who had literally lost 40 years from her body or the pyrokinetic who could make a match sized flame for about five seconds and was a smoker. He was thrilled, no more hunting for his lighter, but for most mutants it was a hassle and nothing more.

Scott shrugged, accepted it, told himself that Twister could have taken another route, and went back to paperwork.

Their two Horsemen took it harder. Magnus took a comm, and told them to call him if he was needed- he was going for a walk. Ororo didn't say much of anything. Everyone knew that she still had the occasional nightmare where as Famine she had killed her nephew.

She had waited until they had given Twister over to the local authorities. Jean knew he'd be out for several hours more; they were already planning on keeping him sedated afterwards. The X-men had given their statements- being part of Sheriff Szilard's posse had allowed them to grab Twister without it being kidnapping, no more. Other than that, they were merely witnesses to events, not investigators of the courts. Jean had been told flat out that nothing that she had seen in Twister's mind would be admitted as evidence- the prosecutor's first decision was that he didn't want a Constitutional issue in the middle of the largest murder trial in US history. If the Friends of Humanity didn't knock him off course, the man was already thinking of higher office.

He was also sure that Magnus wasn't going to be called as a witness if he had anything to say about it. With a resume that included 'supervillan, 1980-2005', Magnus really wouldn't make a good impression on the jury. The X-men had agreed since any testimony would be a matter of public record, it would be best if putting Magnus on the stand could be avoided. The media didn't know that Magnus and Magneto were the same person, they'd barely even seen Magnus. No helmet, no cape, and he had recolored his armour; his face had never been seen in the years past, while the testimony before Congress conducted behind doors in the name of national security.

On the other hand, the others were very photogenic and well spoken. They would be called to testify. The Professor was going to love this, it was a wonderful public relations opportunity.

No, not really. She knew Xavier. He was going to be furious with X-men on the stand, under oath.

---_ Arizona_

Logan stood on the rim of their cut, looking into the sunrise without squinting.

Laura had told him that she needed no help with what she had in mind for today. His help would be a detriment in fact, at least until sunset. Until then, he should 'take some time to put your mind together.'

He stood watching, until the sky shown only blue before he wandered off into the desert. As he trekked into the scrub and cactus, he had a lot on his mind, but he also kept his senses open. He paused at the smell of coyotes, they had passes ahead of where he was. Sniffing, he found their tracks.

He squatted down, sitting on his heels. There had been several of them, but they hadn't sniffing for food. Some impulse, maybe idle curiosity, or maybe wanting to think about someone else's problems for a while, made him follow.

There five of them. One had been scouting ahead, the others in a group. The track were from last night, he could tell by how much the wind had eroded them. He found a place where the four stopped and had laid down, but not the one in the lead, he'd doubled back to the brush where the others had stopped before following his own tracks forward.

Logan frowned when he saw why- his tracks, and Laura's, from several days earlier. The scout had investigated for several hundred yards in one direction, then had made an arc that returned him to where the two paths met. The coyote had gone in the other direction just as far, checking... something.

"Sorry Bub, didn't mean to spook you." Logan grinned as he looked at their tracks, with Laura's prints in his. He saw where she had moved ahead while he got water from one of his bottles. His prints obscured hers while she was in the lead. He knew he hadn't done it intentionally, and probably she hadn't done so either. It made it harder to tell how many of them there were, and it was harder to find one trail than two. It also made it less likely to step on something fragile if they both took the same path- they only time the really had split up was when they were going up or down hill, so that one falling couldn't take them both out, and if they were having one of the quietly angry moments.

And in the real world, if one could step somewhere, many probably could as well. There weren't many land mines made to go off after being stepped on more than once. He growled and shook his head at the thought.

The coyote had finally looped back to were the pack was waiting, and they had left as a group with a different scout. He was going to continue, but there was an oddity. Three of those who were in the main part of the pack had milled about some, but one had just lain on it's side. The others had visited at least twice. That was unusual, there was no sign that one hadn't been able to keep like he'd have expected with injury or illness. Wait.

"Ah..." He crouched down. It was faint, shallow, and small. Only about the size of his thumb. A tiny paw print. Cubs. He could see now where there had been scuffs by the one who hadn't been milling about. Cubs, and they nursed during the pause, the others on watch. They would have only been born a week or two earlier. That little, they weren't weened, they'd barely have fur. The others were carrying a cub each. They must have evacuated the birthing den, but why?

Logan knew it wasn't his and Laura's doing. One, they had made of checking for dens and nests by where they had camped. Two, they hadn't been down the way the coyotes had come from.

Might be nothing. Might be a competitor, something natural. Or it might be something else. Logan bent lower, sniffing. He could smell fear. "OK bub, what had you so scared you moved the kids in the middle of the night?"

He stood up, pulling the straps of his pack tight. He could feel his boots were laced snuggly, and he hadn't touched his water yet. He clenched his right hand unconsciously, unsheathing his claws. He blinked at his reaction. It was the coyote's desert.

He had been living in their desert for a week.

But it was part of how the natural world worked.

He wasn't natural, not fully. He wasn't of the made world either, he was too wild.

The flickers in the back of his mind were growing, flames of something growing, maybe a memory.

He was Logan, and an X-man. He was a protector. The birds no longer screamed at his scent, he was part of this area, and would be until he left. Something had scared his neighbors badly enough to endanger the next generation to save it.

He took off at a steady jog, back tracking the coyotes.

_--- New York_

He'd already taken the phones off the hook. They started ringing last night, asking him to comment. He didn't want to talk to the media. At least those vultures hadn't shown up at the gate yet, or at least they hadn't when he'd gone get the morning papers. Charles tossed the Bugle aside in disgust. Jamison's editorials had always had a strong anti-mutant bias. Today's was just insulting. 'Mutants: Butchers in the Heartland'.

Free press or not, if his kids had been mentioned directly with the slightest hint an accusation of being killers, Charles would have unleashed his legal hounds at Nelson & Blake, and while they were keeping the Bugle busy, he'd have been bringing in the biggest, scariest lawyers he could find who'd passed the New York bar.

Professor Xavier looked at the files on his desk. The hunt for a doctor had struck out on all three fronts. Cecilia Reyes had told him yesterday in no uncertain terms what she thought of the X-men. Ezekiel Martins had passed. And the Doctors Wojohowitz had decided to leave the country. He tossed all three files into the tray marked "shred".

He needed to get out.

They had adapted several vehicles so he could control them, including the old jeep. None of the X-men would drive the jeep if given a choice of anything else in their small collection of vehicles. Kitty wouldn't even ride in it- she had a lot memories of Lance and this vehicle. The New Mutants and the new kids would, but the only ones who did so regularly was Tabitha, a connection to friends long gone. That it was under utilized was part of why Charles had had it fitted with the hand controls. If the weather was good, he could get his folding chair in and out; made of titanium and carbon fiber, it only weighed about 30 pounds, he could manage that easily. With the soft top in the way, it was more of a hassle, but he could still do it.

Even with everyone else gone, he still observed the procedure they'd developed for any of part of the Institute motor pool. He noted his approximate return time and that he was taking the jeep on the white board in the kitchen, before taking the keys from the box. He signed it out again in the garage, noting the milage in the log book. He levered himself out of his chair, holding the roll cage in his hands and swung up and into the driver seat. He leaned forward to grab his claw, and used that to release the latches that held the chair open. Tipping it on its side, it's own weight collapsed it flat, letting him curl it up over the side, putting it in the back.

The old CJ-5 was as older than the students, and as near as Logan could determine belonged to no one model year it had been rebuilt so many times. The frame was almost as old as Charles himself. The carbed, straight-six engine came to life smoothly. The tach was marked with the sweet spots, so at speed you didn't even need to clutch, if you knew how.

He wasn't sure where he was going to go. He had a full tank of gas, good maps in the glove box, cold cash in his pocket and a bad case of horizon itch.

_--- Florida_

They all slept in, even their early risers. They had spent the night before celebrating their friend's victory, it was the only thing on the television. They'd finally kicked the the worst slugabeds free about noon. Even while they were cheering, Kitty had left messages on Scott, Jean and Storm's phones, asking if they would be coming down at least for the last day int he sun.

She didn't bother to call again when she woke up and found the calls hadn't been returned yet. She wished she hadn't sent those messages; in retrospect, she knew they be busy for at least today with the formalities of it all. They were probably already talking to the Professor- that would explain why all the business lines were busy. "Same on the student lines?"

"Bep bep bep." Remy gave a disgusted nod as put his phone back in it's pouch. "Are we worried?"

"Nah, the Professor is probably in conference call with Scott's team."

Kitty sighed. She wasn't going to point out that might be the case if they were using the phones, but the the communications link from _Blackbird_ was independent of everything else, bouncing off either satellites or the ionosphere if they didn't need to encrypt it. There was one form of communications that was unique to them. "Betsy, have you felt anything?"

Psylocke swallowed the last of her tea and shook her head. She wasn't strong enough to get a message to either of the older telepaths, but she would be able to hear them if needed.

RJ polished his fork before slipping it back into one of the pockets of his vest. One more pancake and he'd explode. "Probably up to their eyes in scared dumb people." Living in world full of other people and thing's memories, he was always the pessimist. "Lucky no one has put two and two together and come up with us yet."

"You worry too much RJ. What could go wrong?"

"We could lynched. The planes could get trashed and we have to take the bus. We might be heros with a million screaming fans- none of us would make it home clothed or single." RJ slipped his wide brimmed digger hat on.

_--- New York_

He was out towards Montauk. He hadn't been out this far on Long Island in he didn't know how long, years. He used to come here with his father, when the older Xavier had been home.

He had a flash of memory. He was four or five. These roads had led through small farms, and past fishing villages then. There had been a small diner in this town, they'd stopped there. He let nostalgia guide his fingers on the wheel. Yes, it was still here. It had been remodeled many times, and had probably changed ownership four or five times since them, but it was still here. The smell of fresh bread and pie, burgers and homemade soup mixed with smell of last night's rain and the road. His stomach growled at him. "Why not?"

The soup of the day was vegetable with alphabet noodles- it appealed to his oddly whimsical mood. A bowl of that, and a burger on a home made roll. It was not made with an eye to the healthy standards that Storm held the Institute kitchen to. He knew it was the fat and salt talking, it was bad and very good.

He lifted the soup bowl, to scrape up the last of it, as he contemplated apple, cherry or chocolate cream pie. With his spoon half way raised, he froze. The letters that had been an indulgence to his inner child had twisted into something sinister. 'C U OL MAN' stared up him.

_--- Arizona_

"Logan, I thought you'd be late!" Laura had been insistent, sunset. He needed to be here at sunset, that was only a few minutes from now. "

"Sorry." He set his pack next to hers. "The neighbors were having some problems."

He'd found the original den. He'd hoped to find something done by humans. Humans that might still be there. Humans who might want to start something. Oh, he would have want them to start something.

Instead all he found was a hollow in the earth. There were no signs of fighting, no over lapping territory claims. Maybe it had been the hawks- he'd seen several. They might take a young enough pub. There were also a lot of peccary tracks. The wild pigs were notoriously territorial, dull witted and would attack almost anything, including a dumpster. Not a good place to have pups, they would kill an adult coyote that tried to stand and fight a pack of them.

He'd found a lot of nothing. That was often the way it was. He could smell their fear in the tracks. He'd thought about following them to their end, but it didn't seem quiet right to do that. He found himself sitting on a rock, looking at the dark cavern. He'd come to some decisions.

Laura looked at him, wondering just what he'd been doing all day. He looked and sounded and smelt like he was in better shape than he was twenty four hours ago. _Neighbors?_

He looked at what she'd spent the past two days working on. It made more sense now that he could see it. "You did a nice job. Are you ready to say goodbye to her?"

"Yeah."

"So where did you find this?" He'd read of and even seen similar rituals, but this one was unique.

"It just feels right."

He was getting use to that answer. He took off his hat out of respect. "Think she'd appreciate it?"

"No. But she's gone." Laura turned to face the setting sun. "That is why I'm doing this."

---_ Kansas_

Scott and Hank held the captive upright, arms bound behind his back, gagged and hooded. Jean and Storm were fifty yards behind them, spread out so that one small funnel cloud couldn't get them both. The others were already prepping the _Blackbird_, either to pursue or go home.

The acting Sheriff had asked them to be there for this. Sheriff's deputies and state troopers with rifles were scattered about, ready to shoot if the man made a run for it. There were no risks being taken with this one, even if he was being remanded into federal custody. They turned their head as a familiar model of jetcopter landed beside the prison, a second one orbiting as a gunship. Four more conventional Apaches hovered at a wider interval- Beast felt the hair stand along his spine, knowing that the cannons and rockets were probably pointed less than a foot from him.

Scott growled when the door opened. It had been almost a year, he'd really hoped that they'd been kidnapped by aliens or something. Fred was the first one out, wearing a polo shirt and the start of a beard. He was lifting again- he was still hiding a small car under his shirt, but he didn't look so soggy any more. He almost looked respectable, despite the short mohawk. "Hey guys, long time no see."

"Hi, Mr. McCoy, Cyke. Thanks for busting this creep for us." Lance was dressed well to, but was obvious he was carrying a sidearm of some kind. He he started to flash his SHEILD badge and ID with a practiced wave, then chuckled at himself. These two knew who he was. "Sorry, it's a habit. We'd have been here a few days ago, but Madripoor... you know what a hole it is."

"No, I've never been." Scott tightened his grip on Twister's arm. Mass murderer or not, Cyclops wasn't going to turn him over the Brotherhood. Not to SHEILD. No way in hell. "You can't take him. He needs to stand trial."

"And he will. In a federal court, on charges of terrorism: special prosecutor, his pick of defense lawyers and everything. He's going to get fast tracked, he'll be on trial by years end." Lance reached into his jacket, taking out a folded paper. "I have a court order right here, if you want to see it."

Hank snatched it, reading it quickly. With a sigh, he handed it back. "He'd their problem now, Scott."

"I want a receipt, Lance." Despite being doped to a point of incoherency, Twister started to struggle. He wasn't sure what was happening, but this didn't feel good. There was too much tension in the air, it was like his brain was a punching bag and the two guys were beating on it.

"Had a feeling you might say that." Alvers produced a new form from another pocket. "One acceptance of prisoner letter, right here." He slipped a pen from his pocket, signing the form against his leg. "Happy?"

"No."

Twister let a mew as Fred pulled the criminal from Scott's grasp. "Did ya drug him?"

"A heavy sedative, hopefully it will keep him from being able to use his powers." Hank McCoy didn't like this any more than Scott did.

"Hope so." Fred pulled the smaller man close. "Listen up. If you make us crash and die, I'm going to make sure I land on you. Got it?" Without waiting for a reply, Dukes dragged him towards the waiting aircraft.

Alvers held out his hand. "Look, we really were on a mission. Our first one. We got here as soon as we could." Lance was telling the truth, but he wasn't surprised they didn't believe him. He wouldn't have in their shoes, any more than he was surprised when Summers wouldn't shake his hand. "Fine, tell everyone we said hi? And if it's ok, maybe the Maximoff's can call their dad."

Scott's face was hard, his voice cold and bitter. "You got what you came for."

Lance sighed sadly. He'd learned a lot about himself in a short time. He really didn't want to be Scott's enemy. "OK. Make sure that gets to the local authorities, ok? They need their paperwork."

His head down, Lance Alvers walked back to the helicopter, making a circling motion with his finger, telling the pilot to get the engines turning. He jumped into the passenger bay, taking once last look at his past before sliding the door shut. He grimaced at the sounds of Fred trying to keep the prisoner under control with nastiness. "Guess what, paly. We aren't the FBI. We aren't the CIA. We're SHEILD, don't you know what that means? It means that once I put my hands on you, you didn't exist any more."

"Hey, stow it! If he gets obnoxious, just tranq him." Lance leaned back in the seat, one eye on the passenger, the other on the pilots' seats. He felt the tremor of power, almost as if the aircraft wasn't sure if it remembered how to fly, then it was skyborne.

Scott stood there, watching the black helicopters turning and making their way east. "I don't like this."

"None of us do." Hank put one hand on his student's shoulder. He could hear footsteps, the others were getting closer. "They had a court order. They have the legal authority to do that."

The helicopters had barely made it two miles one the one in the lead, the one with the prisoner, started to maneuver wildly. Clouds were gathering. "No."

The second SHEILD helo gained altitude and lost speed as the Apaches went lower, moving into a kill positions as the first one still struggled. "What is this."

A black speck fell from the lead aircraft.

Scott clawed the brick radio from his belt, twisting it to the general aviation frequency. "LANCE! YOU SON OF A BITCH!" The twisting cloud dropped like lightening, trying to catch the speck, but it was too strong. The elongated black dot tore in two, then vanished. The clouds evaporated in an eye blink once they had killed their master. "DAMN YOU LANCE! WHAT WAS THAT!"

The voice of Todd came out of the speaker back at him. "Bite me, Summers. He tried to kill us all!"

Storm's voice was calm despite the horror and revulsion she felt. "He was trying to gather another tornado, he probably though he could ride away on it." She could do it, but she had practice. Without that, it was a messy form of suicide.

Jean's mind flew to the cockpits of the now circling helicopters. She could feel the voyeuristic glee of Pyro and Pietro, the quiet disgust of Wanda. Fred was truly terrified, Todd was angry, and Lance's mind rippled with rage, frustration and disappointment. The pilots were just relieved. "He was Scott. He was terrified, but he was using his powers."

Lance's voice was thick when he came on the air. "I'm sorry, Scott. I swear, we had to toss him or he'd have killed us all. It wasn't the plan. I swear to God, he was going to get a trial. Over."

Tears of rage leaked from under Cyclops' visor. He didn't feel the housing of the radio crack, or the plastic cut his fingers as he tried to crush it in his hand.

Lance strapped himself into his seat numbly, backing further into the corner. He closed his eyes, they felt hot, like they were burning. "It wasn't supposed to be like this."

"We know, Lance. Fool just-"

"Don't. Just don't, Todd. Please." Lance didn't want to be told it wasn't his fault. It was his team, his mission, his command. His fault. He'd saved his team, that is why he'd opened the door. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. It felt like they were melting. Something was roaring in his ears.

--- **Author's notes:**

Did everyone think I had forgotten the Brotherhood?

Now, if you've reached this point and remember Charles' law firm, then maybe you might know them despite the partner I left out. He's not a partner, not yet.


	8. Chapter 8

**Spring Break**

_--- Day 8, Saturday  
_

The sun was just breaking the horizon as Kurt, Kitty, Sam and Ray lifted off in _Blackbird-2_ so that they could become familiar with the controls. Gambit would be the pilot, with the others getting time on the new aircraft as co-pilots. Remy was nervous, both of them had more time on _Blackbird-1_ than he did, but he'd had a whole six hours on the new one; as the most experienced pilot among them, Nightcrawler was conducting this check flight.

Remy and several of the others were doing a check of _Velocity_, the others would be along in a while. The only reason they were checking the aircraft now was that pessimism and paranoia could be catching. Remy and Kurt both wanted to be sure that no one had been messing with what was without a doubt the two hottest aircraft withing two hundred miles. A check of the on board computers showed no one had been within twenty yards of the two black craft. The security systems had been set up to make a warning announcement if anyone was closer than 25 feet. If anyone had touched them, cell phones would have rung.

_Blackbird_ would take the students north. _Velocity_ would be flown west by Kurt and Rogue; Remy had suggested they get some sister-brother time while fetching Logan and Laura.

---_sb8_

"Is that everything?" Logan slid his canteens into his pack. He'd set his watch alarm for an hour ago so they could break camp in the dark. They could have used their visors' nightvision mode, but neither of them took Forge's technology toys from their packs.

Working by scent, touch and eyes designed to be almost feline in their efficiency, Laura surveyed the campsite again. They'd scattered their firewood and Logan had just filled in the small hole they had made their fire in. The coals were completely dead- this had been her second trip to fill water bottles since waking up. She searched her pack, inventorying it by touch and memory. Everything was in it's place. Tarp, blanket, cordage, what was left of her food, some spare clothes. Fire starting kit. Camera. Emergency radio beacon, mirror. Two trap triggers that finally worked.

They would scatter the grasses they had gathered for ground insulation as they went.

Footprints. A little blood. A couple small scrapes on some trees from where they had tied their tarps that she had already apologized for. A few stray hairs. That was all that was staying behind.

With a slight smirk, she clapped her hand on Logan's shoulder. She had everything she'd brought with her except for a parachute and some of her past.

It would be a jog to get back to where they had left their jump gear, and make the link up with _Velocity_.

---_sb8_

Professor Xavier watched at the new jet settled through the open hatch, the down blast of the powerful jet engines tossing small debris around. _Blackbird-2_ was a beautiful aircraft, it looked almost like a living thing rather than something made. He'd already read the first reports from Kurt and Remy- he wanted to try it himself.

He rolled back from the windows and out of his study. His hand still ached, felt bruised when he entered the elevator, going down to the basement. The were just coming through the blast door when he wheeled out. There were various comments on his forehead. "Welcome home everyone. I'll explain everything in due time. I'm sorry to put you to work so soon after your flight, but the others will be here shortly. Let's get _Blackbird-2_ off the landing pad and under cover, _Blackbird-1_ will be here shortly."

There were one or two groans, but more happy noises with the thudding of their bags on the floor. The news meant that they'd be together again. Once _Velocity_ got back, everyone would be here. Everyone would be home. It had been almost twenty days since they'd been complete. They knew their friends were battered and beaten, but they could be taken care of here. Sam clapped his hands together. "OK, we've all moved the old jet before, new one isn't much different. We all know what to do. Come on, we can do it in ten minutes people."

They hadn't been told yet about Twister's death. That was being withheld from the media for the moment. Most felt a flare of guilt for having relaxed while their friends and teachers were risking life and limb. Dani had been talking with Kitty about the possibility of another trip, something away from towns and cities maybe, just after graduation so that the others could have some down time. It sounded like they'd need it.

"Oh, Tabitha? Come here, please." Charles looked at the young blond. "May I see it please?"

Blushing, Tabby pulled up the sleeve of her tshirt, baring the tattoo. She twisted her arm about a little, letting the Professor see it in all it's glory.

"That is nice work. The seam is a little off, but most people won't see it under your arm."

"You mean I'm not in trouble?" Boomboom's eyes were wide, only slightly less so than Kitty's.

"No, you are not being punished because of the tattoo, Tabitha. They used a fresh needle, kept it clean? Good- did they tell you how to take care of it the first few days?" She nodded. "Very good, ignoring a new tattoo is a punishment in itself, because it will never look good and you'll be stuck with it."

"Professor!? She's not in trouble?" Kitty was shocked. She'd been looking forward to Tabby getting grounded or at least lectured.

"Tabitha is 18; just barely, but legally an adult. So long as she paid with her own money and doesn't violate the Institutes's honor code, we will honor anyone's freedom of expression so long as it doesn't interfere with her or other's studies, training or a mission." He glanced back up at Tabby, pointing with two fingers. "But I hope you are happy with it young lady, because it is with you forever. If you have it taken off, it will hurt as much if not more than getting it did, and leave marks which will last as long as the tattoo."

If Tabby was curious about how calmly Professor X was taking this before, the defense and then vehemence. This was a glimpse at something she knew she'd never know- she probably wouldn't even be able to wheedle it out of Magnus. She stared. The Professor stared back. "Professor? You've had a tattoo taken off?"

Charles Xavier chuckled. He had only heard descriptions of the removal process, but he'd never find out. His little green feet were staying right where they were.

Tabby and Kitty was still staring when he wheeled away. He had a tattoo. Professor Xavier had a tattoo. It had to be. The Prof had _ink_. They glanced at each other; both blinked. This was like finding out that there was no Santa Claus, or walking in on your parents being kinky.

---_sb8_

The airspace near the Institute was always a mess of departing and arriving aircraft. They'd orbited over the ocean for twenty minutes before New York Control cleared them to drop to a five hundred feet and make their rather unique approach. He hadn't expected the 'welcome home' they'd gotten from the air traffic controller at ZNY; they had even switched their call sign from X-Ray Bravo One, but their transponder code was fixed. That was probably how it was known.

Scott knew he was probably worrying over nothing but where the acknowledgment that someone knew of their involvement in Kansas with this aircraft concerned them. Most people would appreciate it, but he wouldn't relax until he had all his wheels on the ground and the engines powered down. Then the debrief. A shower. And he'd apologize to Magnus. Scott was willing to admit he'd been out of line. Reluctantly. Grudgingly. He'd rather play in the road again, but he knew the Professor would insist. If he was going to be a team leader, he had to do it before then. Then he was going to go to bed and pass out for a few days. He didn't think he'd wake up even if Jean pushed him out of bed.

Hank was worried about Jamie. They'd buried his parents, and a judge had declared Multiple a ward of the Xavier Institute yesterday morning. Jamie still hadn't decided what would happen to the farm, other than agree to have one of the neighbors take care of the fields this season. He'd get a cut of whatever they sold the crop for after the property taxes. But in the past few weeks, Jamie had become bitter and withdrawn. The decision to take him out of the actual hunt in the field had made it worse. At least when there was a chance he'd be able to actually get his hands on the mutant who had murdered his parents he was able to use the anger he had in him. Now it seemed all bottled up; he and Roberto would keep an eye on the 'little guy'.

Storm in the co-pilot seat, also concerned. She was worried about Jamie, and the others. Not just the New Mutants, she also regretted what the Brotherhood had become. She was willing to believe that throwing Twister to his death was to save their own lives, but several of them were decent enough to be deeply bothered by it. She was also worried about Laura, who she was going to put in as her number two on the grounds staff if she was coming back. If Laura wasn't, then Logan probably wasn't, and she would miss him greatly.

Jamie was watching the flight engineer's console in silence. They had fixed the worst of the damage, the only had a few warnings and they were all for minor systems that didn't effect the operation of the aircraft. He could feel Hank watching him, but he knew why. He was going to try to talk to the Professor tonight. He wasn't leaving, he really didn't have anyplace to go other than back to the farm and he wasn't sure if he wanted the memories always there.

Amara was looking out her window. In a little bit, she'd be seeing the rest of her friends. Bobby sat beside her, snoring. Roberto had reluctantly strapped himself in on the other side of the aisle as they started their approach- his back hurt from where the first set of stitches tore, laying flat on the floor was more comfortable. Bobby had five bucks that said that Rhaine would tear some of this second batch hugging Roberto; Amara had taken him up on the bet.

Magnus looked at the bag of drawings next to him. It had had been his creation, and it could have done more than end lives. In his hands, a refined version could change the magnetosphere that protected the Earth; in the hands of a powerful telepath like Jean, it could potentially shatter the world. He wasn't sure if even the Institute was the right place for this knowledge; SHEILD certainly wasn't to be trusted with it, no nation or corporation could be. Maybe he was too dangerous, period. He had to think long and hard about his next move, but first he'd see to his young friends. Magnus sighed softly just before they landed, as they passed over the old Brotherhood house.

---_sb8_

Laura snapped from her meditation when they dropped into rotorcraft mode. Like most of the students, she found the transition from fixed wing to helicopter flight unsettling- for that moment, _Velocity_ had the flight characteristics of a bottle rocket.

She double checked that everything was secured, before moving forward to look between Rogue and Logan's shoulders. Kurt was slumped in one of the passenger seats, sleeping. The early evening lights on either side of the Sound flashed past. They must have looped out over Connecticut and come down low over the water to avoid JFK and LGA's flight paths. The water was rippling under them not twenty feet away. She could see their collision lights blinking against the waves.

She took a deep breath. She was better. She'd never be best, not emotionally. She would always be defective like that. But maybe all humans were that way. Her only real baseline was the members of the Xavier Institute, and she knew they were different, but they couldn't be all that different from normal people, could they?

The violet marker of the Xavier Institute beacon lit against the windscreen, throbbing gently. The made a low pass- the vertical cover for the hanger was open already. Four bands of lights flickered inside, showing the way down. There were lights throughout the mansion. The Xavier Institute was ablaze with life.

She felt the mental waves from Betsy and Jean.

She looked through the armoured polymer that formed the cockpit windows. Standing behind a shield of air, Professor Xavier, Ororo and Alex were waiting for them just inside the blast door.

She was home. She might leave for recreation or training, and certainly for missions. Missions should be as far away as possible, because this _was_ her home, this is the safe place she'd return to.

**---Author's notes:**

If I sound like I know exactly what is in Logan and Laura's packs, yep. Logan has my old one, rigged for desert; Laura has my newer, "high speed" one.

As I said before, in print canon, Xavier had once been in the military, in a special unit that found the lost. And there was and still is a unit that still does insane missions, but primarily as medics. Some of the finest damn trauma and rescue medics on the planet, to be precise. I'll probably piss off some old friends, or get a huge laugh from them over Chuck's ink.

And if you know what that tattoo means, then you know what he was before getting hurt. The capabilities of a man so trained and so gifted almost scares me, but then, Magnus was something once razor sharp to...

And I really fracking hate it when gets a bug up its nose and strips out my scene breaks. Hopefully these ones will be a bit more permanent.

SO, next post will be part of **They Never Trained Me For This.**

_---sb8_

The desert sun shown without pity on the pile of rocks that had come to be over the past few days. It wasn't very big to a human, but it loomed over the smaller creatures that were native to these sands. About six feet long, and three wide, there were others like it in the general area, disappearing with time. The sand would start to mount up, gradually. It would be centuries before this cairn would disappear.

Other humans would come. Most wouldn't know what it was. They might take pictures of the scratchings, wondering what they meant- probably a survey marker. The snakes and spiders and scorpions didn't care about what was under it, this was their land. The mice and the rats only cared because of what lurked among the rocks. For hawks and owls and coyotes, it was would just be a landmark when the mostly-human scent left it.

Though it lay empty, Laura had buried her past in the desert, in this shallow grave of sand and rock. The largest rock lay at the north facing end of the cairn, her old name chipped into it. X-23 was dead.

And in years to come, sometimes a traveler would come back with a strange tale. One of a dark and angry spirit in the form of a young girl, howling her rage in the wind, clawing at the night sky.

But stranger tales have come out of the desert.


End file.
